On a long list of typical teenage behavior that I eschewed, is the fact that I had zero interest in getting my driver's license (or learner's permit, for that matter). I ended up not learning until I was 25, when I had a quarter-life crisis and convinced myself there was something metaphorically positive about driving myself to therapy sessions. I actually felt pretty comfortable once I got behind the wheel, but of course the thing with driving is that you constantly have to worry about everyone else on the road with you. And apparently, we should be the most worried when driving in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Insurance company LendingTree has released a study comparing driving habits across America, and Massachusetts came out on top in two categories: worst drivers and highest accident rate. Congratulations! But to be fair to the sixth state in the Union, nearby Rhode Island was a close second in both those categories, with California not far behind. Some more vehicular findings:
Massachusetts has the worst drivers in the United States, according to a recent study from the finance site Lending Tree.
Per the study -- which collected data from all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., from Nov. 5, 2023 to Nov. 4, 2024 -- Massachusetts ranked first for the highest number of reported incidents, including speeding, DUIs and citations, with 61.1 incidents per 1,000 drivers.
Within those incident types, the state also had the highest accident rate, with 44.4 accidents per 1,000 drivers -- marking the only state to rate above 40.
Massachusetts also holds the 11th-highest DUI rate in the country, the study said.
According to WalletHub, Massachusetts has some of the highest car insurance rates in the country due to these factors.
As to why the Bay State is seeing these high numbers, CBS affiliate WBZ attained data that shows an increase in traffic in the state between 2022 and 2023, with 5% more cars on the road in Boston, over 10% more in Newton and about 15% more in Framingham -- to name just a few cities.
CBS News, meanwhile, attributed this growth to the fact that many employees returned to offices after the COVID-19 pandemic, but less of those same workers are using public transportation, instead opting for cars.
This, combined with the state's hazardous winter weather conditions, creates an environment primed for traffic incidents, the outlet reported.
On a positive note, Massachusetts drivers have the fifth lowest speeding-related incident rate in the country, at just 1.3 speeding incidents per 1,000 drivers, per the Lending Tree findings.
Additional findings showed that D.C. ranks highest for DUIs at 3.6 per 1,000 drivers, while California comes in at a close second with 3.5.
North Dakota, meanwhile, ranked first for highest incidents of speeding, with 8 incidents per 1,000 drivers.
Elsewhere, Arkansas ranked first for best drivers overall, with the lowest number of reported incidents at 14.7 per 1,000 drivers, as well as the lowest accident rate at 8.2 per 1,000.
[From People]
Well, I'm sure Arkansas is very proud to have won best drivers status. Good for them. I'm a little surprised New York didn't show up higher on any of these lists, considering NYC has been declared as the worst US city for traffic, but the Empire State placed middle of the road in all categories. As for Massachusetts, it's been years since I've been in the state myself, but I did spend a sizable portion of my youth in a car driven by my greater Boston-area bred grandmother, and... yeah, I totally buy them as worst drivers. I love my grandmother!! But being a passenger in her car was taking your life in your hands, for a variety of quirky yet terrifying reasons. Like the time we were listening to dulcet classical music, returning home after a summer day spent at the pool. We pulled into her parking space, and as she turned off the radio my grandmother said, "I was almost asleep!" Or the time we were on the highway and my grandmother glanced over to me, with a sly, conspiratorial look in her eye, and said, "When I see three trees on the right side of the road, and one tree on the left, I mentally imagine taking one tree away from the three and moving it over to the left, so both sides are balanced." Or the fact that at a certain point she just decided that every single intersection had a stop sign.