‘The United States of Fear’: How Scary is Michigan?

How scary is Michigan?

Sort of. Not very. 

The Great Lakes State ranks so close to the middle of the pack in “The United States of Fear” ranking in the Easterly Blog that it’s a matter of perspective.

If hurricanes, shark attacks and snakes, scare the stuffing out of you, Michigan is the place to live. But the blog noted that the state’s slogan, Pure Michigan, “is not an ode to the quality of local meth.”

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The state ranked 10th among 50 states fear of meth users and 14th for fear of heights. The scariest thing about Michigan? Murder. The murder rate is scarier in only four other states: No. 1 Louisiana, No. 2 Mississippi, No. 3 South Carolina and No. 4 Alabama.

Michigan comes at No. 23 on the list, based on 15 criteria of common fears:

1. Bears: No. 16
2. Clowns: No. 37
3. Prison: No. 17
4. Flying: No. 22
5. Hurricanes: No. 50
6. Shark attacks: No. 50
7. Spiders: No. 35
8. Snakes: No. 40
9. Dentists: No. 17
10. Tornadoes: No. 23
11. Heights: No. 14
12. Meth labs: No. 10
13. Lightning: No. 15
14. Volcanoes: No. 34
15. Murderers: No. 5

The top five states on The United States of Fear list are, in order of scariness, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. The least-scary state are South Dakota, North Dakota, Vermont, Nebraska and Montana.

So, except for a few categories, Michigan isn’t all that scary. However, the rankings were compiled before that scary testicle-eating pacu fish was pulled from a Michigan lake.

» For more information and the data used to compile the list, click here.