by Dish Staff
Brian Palmer determined the worst places to drive in the US:
No. 5: Baltimore. Baltimoreans just can’t keep from running into each other. They were outside the top 10 in fatalities, DWI deaths, and pedestrian strikes, but their rate of collision couldn’t keep them out of the top five overall.
No. 4: Tampa, Fla. Tampa doesn’t do any single thing terribly, but it is consistently poor:
18th worst in years between accidents, fifth in traffic fatalities, tied for 11th in DWI fatalities, and 10th in pedestrian strikes. If the city had managed to get outside the bottom half in any individual category, Tampa residents might have avoided this distinction.
No. 3: Hialeah. The drivers of Hialeah [Florida] get into a middling number of accidents, ranking 11th among the 39 candidates. But when they hit someone, they really mean it. The city finished third for fatalities. They also have a terrifying tendency to hit pedestrians.
No. 2: Philadelphia. Drivers in the city of brotherly love enjoy a good love tap behind the wheel. Second-places finishes in collisions and pedestrian strikes overwhelm their semi-respectable 16th-place ranking in DWI deaths.
No. 1: Miami. And it’s not even close. First in automotive fatalities, first in pedestrian strikes, first in the obscenity-laced tirades of their fellow drivers.
So basically avoid Florida. Update from a reader:
Finally an article that supports what I have been saying for years: Miami has the worst drivers. I’ve driven in Thailand, Taiwan and China, to name a few of the most stressful ones in Asia, as well as Paris, Barcelona and Madrid in a right-hand drive car, and Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. But Miami is by far the worst. How on earth some of the drivers get their licenses I will never know – perhaps they don’t.
Last year I was stopped in a parking, and in the 10 minutes I was there, I witnessed three fender benders and saw two people nearly knocked over. And no, none of them were due to the weather. Seems to me the major element is the combination of laid back island mindset mixed with American hustle and a whole lot of FU.
Another notes:
I am not defending Florida drivers here; I live in the middle of the state, and was surprised not to see Orlando on the list. But this is a reprint of a year-old article based on data from at least the year before that. And if you link to the Allstate survey that prompted the reprint (which we’ll discredit because it doesn’t fit the desired conclusion), it ranks three Massachusetts cities in the top four (the other city being Washington, D.C.). But, hey, nobody ever misses a chance to take a shot at Florida.
At least it’s refreshing to have a city-comparison post on the Dish where Andrew isn’t talking shit about NYC.
(Photo of boat blocking traffic on I-95 in Miami via Flickr user That Hartford Guy)
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