While most of us think of home as our safe haven, a survey by Progressive Insurance shows that the roads surrounding your home are where the majority of car crashes happen.

Insurance companies use where you live as part of the process of setting your car insurance rates, so how often accidents happen to people in your neighborhood is more important than you might think. Companies will look at how often crashes and theft occur in a given area, as well as the cost of repairs and medical treatment, to determine how much to charge you for insurance coverage.

Progressive asked 11,000 of its auto insurance policyholders who reported accidents in 2001 how close to home they were when the accident happened. Fifty-two percent reported they were 5 miles or less from home, and an astounding 77 percent reported they were within 15 miles of home.

Progressive says the majority of people do most of their driving near home, so if you live in an accident-prone area, insurers will assume your risk is higher.

In addition:

• Accidents were more than twice as likely to take place 1 mile from home compared to 20 miles from home.
• Only 1 percent of reported accidents took place 50 miles or more from home.
• The region with the highest percentage of reported accidents occurring less than 5 miles from home was the Northeast, followed by the Midwest, West, Great Plains, Gulf, and Mid-Atlantic. (The Northeast region is made up of Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The Midwest includes Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, and Ohio. The Western region encompasses Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington. The Great Plains is Colorado, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah. The Gulf region includes Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. The Mid-Atlantic has Delaware, Washington, D.C., Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.