St. Cloud Road Safety Overview
Centrally located in Minnesota, the city of St. Cloud and the greater Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) are home to roughly 289,000 people. The St. Cloud MSA is the third largest in Minnesota. The area is also growing, having experienced approximately 3.2% growth in population from 2010 through 2019.
For those who call St. Cloud home or are considering relocating to the area, it’s vital to have an accurate picture of key aspects of living in this vibrant city, including how safe the city’s roads are and how likely you may be to get into a car accident in St. Cloud.
General Minnesota Traffic Accident Statistics
Statistics from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) show that driving in St. Cloud is relatively safe compared to other parts of the state. To understand the difference in safety between St. Cloud and other roadways in the state, it helps to first consider statewide numbers.
Overall, DPS’s statistics for 2022 reveal that, for the State of Minnesota, there were:
- A total of 418 crashes that resulted in at least one fatality
- 444 individuals who lost their lives in a traffic collision
- 17,367 wrecks that injured at least one person
- 23,705 people who were hurt in a traffic accident
- 52,481 out of 70,266 total accidents that only resulted in damage to property
These accident rates can be broken down by county as well.
Within the state, the following counties had the highest number of accidents:
Hennepin County
Hennepin County is the most populous county in Minnesota, so it should come as no surprise that this county recorded the most accidents. A total of 18,918 wrecks occurred in this county in 2022, including 4,822 wrecks that resulted in injury and 60 fatal crashes.
Ramsey County
Home to the state’s capital, St. Paul, Ramsey County recorded 8,070 crashes on its roadways throughout 2022. Of these, 29 were fatality accidents that killed a total of 31 people. Additionally, 1,763 injury crashes happened that left 2,316 people hurt to varying degrees. The remaining 6,278 crashes only resulted in property damage.
Dakota County
Located in the east-central part of the state, Dakota County experienced a total of 6,345 reported traffic collisions in 2022. Twenty-four people lost their lives in these accidents, and another 1,994 people were hurt in the county’s 1,426 injury accidents. There were 4,895 accidents that damaged property but did not result in a death or injury.
Anoka County
Anoka County is the state’s fourth-largest county by population, and it also saw the fourth-highest number of traffic accidents. In 2022, there were 4,246 accidents that happened within the county limits. This included 23 fatality crashes that claimed the lives of 28 people.
There were 1,081 injury accidents that hurt a total of 1,542 people and 3,142 wrecks that only resulted in property damage.
How Stearns County and St. Cloud Fared
Stearns County, which has St. Cloud as its county seat, experienced 1,875 total car accidents on its roadways in 2022. The vast majority of these — a total of 1,414 — were accidents only involving property damage. Ten accidents were fatality crashes, and 451 were injury accidents. A total of ten people were killed and 627 injured in Stearns County car accidents.
Observations About Traffic Accidents in Minnesota
The Department of Public Safety’s statistics give further insight into these accidents by including other key details related to each crash.
Road Type and Condition
Over half of all crashes happened on dry roadways. By a four-to-one margin, dry roads were the location of more accidents than snowy roads, despite most accidents happening during winter.
Slightly less than half of all accidents happened on two-way, undivided roads. The next most dangerous type of road was a two-way road with a median dividing barrier.
Conversely, the safest roads were two-way roads with a center left-turning lane. Those roads only saw 1,228 accidents of all types compared to the over 50,000 accidents that happened on the other two types of roads.
Contributing Factors
Most multi-vehicle crashes in 2022 happened because of human factors or poor decisions made by drivers.
Aside from road surface conditions, the top contributing factors discovered in multiple-vehicle collisions include the following:
- Failing to yield the right of way to others
- Following other vehicles too closely
- Driving while distracted
- Making an improper turn or an unsafe merge maneuver
- Failing to stay within one’s own lane
- Careless, reckless, or erratic driving behavior
- Swerving, either unintentionally or to avoid a hazard
- Running a red light
- Speeding
In 2022, there were 444 total fatalities where at least one driver involved was or was suspected of being drunk. This number is slightly down — by approximately 10% — from 2021, when 488 people lost their lives in drunk driving crashes. However, it is still up by about 20% compared to 2016 through 2020. During those years, there were an average of 377.8 fatalities per year.
Ages of Drivers Involved in Accidents
St. Cloud is a younger town, and younger individuals are more likely to be involved in crashes than other age groups. Drivers between 20 and 24 were the most likely to be involved in a crash, followed by drivers ages 15 to 19 and 25 to 29. The age groups who were least likely to be involved in an accident were those over the age of 85 and those younger than 15.
Across all age groups, male drivers were more likely to be involved in a crash than women.
Driving Safely in St. Cloud, MN
While injury and fatality crashes do occur in St. Cloud and throughout Minnesota, these events usually come about because of poor decisions drivers make, like drinking and driving or running red lights.
Drivers in St. Cloud can protect themselves by not assuming that the risk of a crash is low just because the road is not an interstate or the road surface is dry. In any city or county, it is critical to remain vigilant and practice safe driving for the benefit of everyone on the road.