So? Worst drivers? How does YOUR city rank? :)

All over the local (Omaha) news this morning was the story that an insurance industry study has ranked Omaha's drivers the worst of all of the nation's major metropolitan areas. Omaha was 8th. worst in last year's study:

https://quotewizard.com/news/posts/the-best-and-worst-drivers-by-city-2018

Las Vegas was ranked as 66th. worst. Areas with particularly poor reputations for driving and traffic include San Francisco (5th. worst), Los Angeles (9th. worst), NYC (36th. worst) and Chicago (43rd. worst).

Orlando, Miami, El Paso, Detroit and Little Rock topped the list of best drivers.

Disclaimer: When people ask me where I live I usually reply "Omaha", but I actually live in a development about 1/3 of the way between Omaha and Lincoln, well outside of the city line. LOL, I guess this means that I'm only 2/3 of a bad driver, huh? (Lincoln did not make the list at all.)

 

This is screwy because i work in Glendale, CA which is the worst of the worst. It is a city that im assuming considered as part of LA in the context of this report.

By far this city has the most accidents due to high rate of insurance fraud and overall ******baggery amongst the population. 75% of the cars here are Mercedes or BMW and they all crash into each other.

 

Best? Well, not to quibble over definitions but I can't help but wonder if our ranking reflected the general inability to travel at speeds above jogging. Between potholes and orange construction barrels, we often are moving too slow to kill each other, as much as we might like to.

We're number one, we're number one. Yay.

/droll

 

We're pretty good here in northern Nevada (not on the list)… freeways and roadways have kept reasonable pace with the population. I hate having to go through Sacramento (3rd) and the Bay-Area... so damn congested. I'm surprised Las Vegas isn't higher on the list. They do have nice wide, straight roadways, but man they fill up at peak times.

 

In 2017 rankings, Austin Texas was 27th in the country. However, not proudly,

Austin ranks as top Texas city for bad drivers for the year 2017. (imho, it deserves it, having lived here since the 70's)

On a good day, the most rude, inattentive, no signal/lane swervers, red light runners, texting drifters, get the hell out of my way, finger salutes, yelling out the window, try to drive you off the road, I'm not letting anybody merge, my truck is bigger than yours, and only god knows how many drunk drivers, born out by DPS statistics. And don't get me started on cyclists.

Yeah, you discovered my biggest pet peeve @dmr !

 

How is Seattle not at the top? Drivers here make me cringe. Between the oblivious drivers on their phone to the prius sitting in the left lane going below the speed limit driving here makes my blood pressure rise nearly every time.

 

Other than cabbies, who are almost always asshole drivers in every city, Nevada drivers are pretty polite, imo, and don't ridiculously speed. It amazes me that Atlanta and DC are so low on the list. Aggression is a way of life there. I certainly don't miss living in Atlanta. Where I grew up, St. Louis is very passive, so Atlanta was a wake up call.

 

Omaha likely tops the list because Warren Buffett still drives.

 

IIRC (I'm not curious enough to read it again) Seattle was 20-30-ish on the worst list. I've driven in Seattle (well, rental cars) and what I most remember about it is that it always seems to be raining when I'm there!

Actually, Warren B has the reputation of being a perfect gentleman, and although I don't ever remember seeing him driving, I'm sure he is polite and courteous. If you're referring to age, my dad (MHRIP) drove until he was well into his 80s and he was quite competent behind the wheel. My retired boss (well into his 70s) still drives and has no issues. I am now in my 60s (although in denial) and I plan to continue driving after retirement if I decide to stay around here. (You NEED a car here!)

As I posted on a local board, when I first moved out here I almost immediately noticed that the drivers here were gawd-awful! Some of the worst habits there are! Like at a stop sign intersecting a major street, they pull out into the traffic lane before they stop! That was the first thing I remember and I learned to watch for it. Since I moved out to the 'burbs I don't see it as much, but that's just dangerous! Another thing, majorly annoying, light turns green and the driver in front of you just sits there thinking about it before taking off! And yeah, there's the whole "my truck is bigger than your truck" thing. Everybody has a thing for BIG trucks and BIG SUVs! Out here at work most drive normal or smaller cars but when I go to the casinos I often find my car dwarfed by two huge honking Grand Viagras or something!

Actually I learned to drive in St. Louis. We lived there for a while when I was in my teens and you could get your license there at 16 (it was 18 in NY at the time) and I took Driver Ed and got the license. I remember the instructor saying that St. Louis drivers were awful and St. Louis traffic was nasty and such. That was what I first learned to drive in.

 

No Way Orlando is the best city to drive in when I-4 is the most dangerous highway in the country.
It's so dangerous I refuse to drive though town and when it rains Floridians loose their minds! SCARY!

 

Drivers in Houston seem unnecessarily aggressive. I routinely see people trying to pass on the shoulder, swerve to take an exit from 3 lanes over, ignoring that a lane is turn only and going straight, turning out of a middle lane, considering someone’s turn signal to be a personal insult/challenge to match their speed to prevent them from merging, etc. Also, much how nature abhors a vacuum, if there is any daylight between you and the car in front of you, someone will attempt to merge into it negating the whole safe following distance.

 

We’re 70th place. Guess we have great drivers here?!

 

I’ve driven all over the US, and there is very little difference in driving habits across the country. Every city has a small but solid percentage of selfish, aggressive, inattentive or unskilled drivers. Luckily so far the good drivers still outnumber the bad.....

 

You really think this? I tend to stereotype every state I drive in. The differences in speed and aggression in various areas is very notable to me.

Some of it is due to laws too. For example in Georgia, only the highway patrol can pull you over for speeding for violations less than 10 MPH over the limit. Also no points are given for speeding violations less than 15 MPH over the limit. If you weren't going ten over in Atlanta in light traffic, you were typically a threat to others by going too slow. Lol

 

You’re absolutely correct that there are slight differences in speed,aggression, etc. - I was speaking of overall driving habits in general terms. Gotta be careful no matter the location!

 

#6.

Here is what happens around here and I have no idea why.

people pull up to a stop. look right and then go. never look left. I know we have a number of people here from other countries but they also drive on the same side of the road so i cant figure it out.

Saw an old lady walking a baby stroller down the street the other day, She came right down the curb, looked right right walked right out into traffic with the baby going first. She turned right but all the cars had to go around her. She never looked left even with all the honking.

 

Are they kidding? Honolulu has some of the best drivers? No way. Honolulu drivers never use their turn signals, don't understand that the left lane of the freeway is reserved for the faster cars. Some drivers think it's their duty to go the speed limit in the left hand lane while others pass in the right lanes. Many drivers don't think things through and end up having to cross 3 or 4 lanes just to make a right or left turn, and they will hold up traffic while they change lanes to make that turn. Their freeways are the only ones which have on ramps connected to the off ramps so you have to fight to get on and off the freeways. They also have some of the shortest on ramps I have ever saw, most notably the University of Hawaii on ramps where you have to go from 0 to 45 in seconds. I have seen women drivers putting on their make up while driving, men reading the newspaper while driving. Not to mention people in 10 ton trucks texting while driving. We got rid of van cams and never put in cameras at intersections so people regularly run the red light. Last week a woman driver swerved into another lane to run the red light, passing a van that had already crossed traffic. That woman killed a pedestrian and injured others. Her excuse was that she was on medication. This woman had previously lost her license for DUI and had a number of speeding tickets and yet she still ran red lights and finally killed someone.

I usually carry a bat or club or something just in case another driver get's mad and comes after me and my car.

 

I have lived all over the states, and El Paso was one of THE worst. Not on anger, just on really, really bad driving. Not knowing how to merge, someone driving 30 mph on the freeway, people slamming on brakes because they get startled....just BAD.

All I can guess is, there are so many bad drivers there...no one is a good enough driver to complain!

Portland I agree with, similar driving challenges to El Paso. In PDX they are nice drivers, but there is a reason our freeways cap at 50 mph most places...and why we need merge lights . Tons of slow drivers, but then they think nothing of running a full-blown red.....or blocking intersections. And if you hit a four way stop sign area? Have fun waiting.

Then again, at least it's not like when I've been in Boston...where it's the opposite problem.. super attentive, but aggressive.

I actually liked driving in Dallas though. Fast, but polite. (Like what Tring said about Atlanta, if you're NOT going 10 over in decent traffic, you're more of a risk.) But that was years ago, who knows how it is now, then again, it scored ok...

Fun report though!

 

Fresno is 24th worst. I hoped we'd at least make the top ten. There was a year we led the nation in both auto theft and arson. The arson was kind of an anomaly because it was mostly the auto thieves burning their stolen cars after they stripped them of anything valuable.

 

Living in Omaha, my guess is those polled for this study simply haven't learned a few of the local driving rules:
1) Never stop when the traffic light is yellow, the risk of causing a chain reaction collusion is simply to high. This rule is made obvious when feeling guilty that you should have stopped at that stale yellow and looking in the rear view to see 4 drivers behind you did not agree.
2) Turn signal levers are installed to balance the steering column, do not disrupt this balance by moving the lever in any direction under any circumstance.
3) A 4 way stop sign does not indicate that all cars are to stop at the intersection, it does mean that cars traveling perpendicular to yours are.
4) The 3 lanes of interstate travel between Omaha and Lincoln are to be used as follows: average and slower traffic is to use the middle lane; faster traffic is to use the left lane (self appointed exclusions to this rule are allowed providing that the driver is assisting mankind by insuring that no traveler exceeds the posted speed limit); fastest traffic is to use the otherwise unused right lane.
5) When driving on a multi-lane road, under no circumstances do you follow so far behind a vehicle that another vehicle could fit in this space. Violators to this rule are guaranteed to be reminded of rule #2.