Cities With the Best and Worst Drivers

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is “America’s Safest Driving City” for the fifth time in eight years, according to Allstate Insurance Company’s annual safe driving report, released August 28, 2012. Allstate has compiled the report for eight years in a row, using data from insurance claims made to the company. The report ranks the 200 largest U.S. cities from safest to most dangerous based on car accident frequency.

The top 10 safest driving cities in the United States, according to the Allstate report, are:

1. Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where drivers file car accident claims every 13.8 years, 27.6 percent less often than the national average of 10 years
2. Boise, Idaho – 27.3 percent less often
3. Fort Collins, Colorado – 26.7 percent less often
4. Madison, Wisconsin – 23 percent less often
5. Lincoln, Nebraska – 19.3 percent less often
6. Huntsville, Alabama – 19.1 percent less often
7. Chandler, Arizona – 18.9 percent less often
8. Reno, Nevada – 18.4 percent less often
9. Knoxville, Tennessee – 18.1 percent less often
10. Springfield, Missouri – 17.4 percent less often

The 10 most dangerous driving cities in the United States, according to the Allstate report, are:

1. San Francisco, California – 54.6 percent more often
2. Miami, Florida – 58.4 percent more often
3. Newark, New Jersey – 59.4 percent more often
4. Alexandria, Virginia – 62.6 percent more often
5. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 64.1 percent more often
6. Glendale, California – 77.5 percent more often
7. Hialeah, Florida – 77.6 percent more often
8. Providence, Rhode Island – 80.9 percent more often
9. Baltimore, Maryland – 87.9 percent more often
10. Washington, D.C. – 112.1 percent more often

The report indicates that big-city drivers have more car accidents, statistically, than drivers in smaller cities or towns. In cities of more than one million people, only Phoenix drivers filed car accident claims less often than the national average of 1 every 10 years. Phoenix beat the national average, however, by only 0.2 percent.