The only info I’ve been able to dig up has been anecdotal. Are there any actual statistics on which cities have the worst drivers?
My wife might be able to find out, she sells insurance…but I won’t be able to ask her until tomorrow.
Traffic tickets? Speeding tickets? Fender benders? Death and dismemberments? Is this on a per capita basis or overall?
My flippant answer would be whatever cities Readers’ Digest wants to trash this month.
We’ve been down this road before (yuk, yuk). Here, read this:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=31823
Most of the posts are opinions, but there are probably some solid stats buried in there too. From what I recall, Boston seemed to lead the concensus of having nightmare drivers.
I heard that my little city of Visalia, CA is ranked 2nd in the list of the worst cities to drive safely in, with St. Louis being 1st.
My WAG would be somewhere in Florida - I’ve read that somewhere in their sixties, elderly folk fall into the same accident rate demographic as 19 year old males.
St Louis? If that’s the case, I’d be curious as to why.
Anheuser-Busch, St Louis, Missouri.
I have to jump in and defend Boston drivers. I find that they are WAY more courteous than my present locality (northern Virginia). If you need to change lanes in heavy traffic in Boston, people will actually get out of your way! Of course, there is also the assumption that you will get out of their way if they need to get into your lane. If you’re not used to this, it seems like everyone is cutting you off, but really they’re just assuming that you’re willing to yield just like everyone else. Here in northern VA, the drivers seem really mean spirited and would rather let you hit their car than allow anyone to get in front of them.
St. Louis has more stop signs per capita than any city in the U.S. As a result, we have developed a well-known technique of rolling through stops, which is now, unfortunately, extending to traffic signals, as well.
Plus, I hate to say this about my fellow homeys, but we just can’t drive in bad weather.
When I was in Phoenix this summer, I was told that Phoenix drivers run red lights the most often in the nation.
Gurd is right. NoVa is an awful place to drive. This is the only place I’ve ever driven where using a signal on the highway is an invitation for the bastard in the other lane to move into your blind spot. It’s really dysfunctional, and it really happens, all the damned time.
The funny part about it is Northern Virginia used to have very courteous drivers. My parents were very impressed when they moved here from Los Angeles, and when I started driving, people were still quite polite. That all changed when the development boom hit in the late 80’s. Now, I’ll bet on a Great Falls soccer mom and her minivan against a Boston cabbie any day.
I’ve been to a lot of cities, and have driven in some, but the two that really take the cheese are the Washington, DC area and the Twin Cities, Minnesota area.
As far as DC goes, at least they have a semi-decent public transit system. I’ve found it’s cheaper to get a Metro pass for the duration of my visit than it is to rent a car and pay for parking. It also eliminates the need for tranquilizers to deal with some of these people.
Minneapolis/St. Paul has an excuse, sort of. Most of their street design was never meant to be able to carry the population it has today. So you end up cutting across three lanes of traffic to your off-ramp because the drunks who laid out the roads thirty years ago weren’t farsighted enough to make the bridge across the river eight lanes, too. San Antonio, Texas has the same problem.
Robin
Being from Minneapolis/St.Paul, I would agree with msrobyn. It also seems that it only takes 6 months to forget how to drive in the winter. Every year after the first snowfall, the idiots come out in droves. I’ve almost been hit 4 times this week since the snow came. That’s right, 4 near-collisions. All by people not paying attention, driving too quickly, and forgetting that when there is snow on the ground, your stopping distance doubles.
I would also like to nominate Salt Lake City. Being a former resident, I’ve seen all kinds of idiocy. This is also due to the increased growth of the suburbs, the influx of Californians, and the short-sighted highway planning done in the 50s.
…I’d have to say Phoenix tops the list. Why?
-
Lots of retirees that, as Carina42 pointed out, fall into the worst category of driver along with young males.
-
Urban sprawl that makes for lots of city driving. This has gotten better with the construction of some new expressways in the past 10 years but it’s still bad. Also, city streets (like Scottsdale Rd.) have speed limits that range from 50 mph to 30 mph. Sometimes people forget that they should slow down.
-
I don’t think anyone who lives in Phoenix is actually from Phoenix. The Phoenix driving ‘style’ is a mish-mash of driving styles from around the nation making for schizophrenic driving conditions. There is no real way to reliably predict what one driver will do as opposed to another.
-
Being an almost perpetually sunny city people flat out forget what to do in bad weather (rain mostly but an occasional snow). I was there in the 80’s when Phoenix had its first snow in 30 years and the people there positively had no idea how to drive in it (the snow was a dusting that a northerner wouldn’t even blink at and yet offices and schools closed all over the place).
As for Chicago (my hometown) a co-worker just sent me this:
A Winter Wonderland
Chicago Style
Driver’s swear … are you listenin’,
At the Mall …folks are bitchin’,
A miserable sight … they’re sorry tonite,
Drivin’ in Chicago’s TrafficLand!
Gone away … are your tires,
meter has … just expired,
They towed you away, while you shopped today,
Parkin’ in Chicago’s TrafficLand!
On the Ryan we will have a breakdown,
We’ll be stuck and threathened on the side,
If we’re lucky, muggers might come mug us,
And if we plead they may give us a ride!
Santa’s sleigh … was impounded,
All the Elves … were surrounded,
He’s now in a cell … for ringin’ his bell,
Living in Chicago’s TrafficLand!
Atlanta’s bad. I am fortunate to live across the state, but have ventured to the ole capital a time or two. Spaghetti Junction is no joke. The going speed on I-85 north seems to range from 85 in the far left lane, gradually decreasing across the other 4 or 5 lanes to a measly 1 mph stop-and-go in the right lane, which constantly seems to creep toward the next exit until you are well out of the city.
Some of the worst drivers are in the south. I swear they are taught in driving school that after the light changes red, at least three more cars can go. It’s so bad that the South Carolina traffic book says that even after the light turns green you should watch for more cars coming. The green light is privledge, not a right. Red lights and stop signs are just a suggestion. People tailgate constantly, merge where they’re not supposed to, cut across three lanes of traffic to get off an exit and barely miss the sign at the beginning of the ramp. It’s not just the city either. You will avoid at least one wreck a day in the country, where nationally people are the best drivers. The south might not have the worst drivers, but it has the stupidest, and that goes for overall, not just driving.
Is it worst drivers or worst city planners/police? In other words, is the field even?
Peace
San ‘tail-gate city’ Diego, rush hour, is also fun…
Have to define the question better, I’d say. Accident statistics depend on traffic density, commercial traffic, etc… too. I drive all over the country and out of it too, and believe that some places have internal rules that are “hard to get” if you’re an outsider (NY, Boston), but can at least be described as consistent, albeit engendering consistently bad driving.
But inconsistently bad ? Honolulu takes it, hands down. Gawking tourists, lost visitors, retirees, over-rushed businessfolk, surfers trying to catch a wave at lunch hour, folks whose last truck was a water buffalo, a road system designed for a tenth of the current traffic…
I think it’s whatever city you live in or have experience with. I can right-on Gurd and Sofa King that northern Virginia (NoVa for short – the suburban blight that surrounds DC for miles) has horrible drivers. But I worked in Pittsburgh for a while, and it seemed filled with bad drivers (or bad roads?). When I went to New York and Chicago, each of those seemed like driving nightmares. Maybe people are bad drivers all over.