Whether we’re functioning as pedestrians or drivers at a given moment, all of us would like to remain safe. Naturally, we’d like to reach our destinations without fuss, and without being endangered by drivers along the way. So how safe are drivers in your city?
According to the Allstate insurance company, the safest city for your walking or driving is Sioux Falls, South Dakota. For the fifth time in the eight years that an “Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report” has been released, Sioux Falls has topped the list. Based on Allstate’s insurance claims data, the report ranks America’s 200 largest cities according to frequency of automobile collisions. For their purposes, a crash is any collision that results in a claim for property damage.
As stated in the Report, the average Sioux Falls driver will have a collision every 13.8 years. That’s 27.6 percent less than the national average: a collision every 10 years. Next “safest” are Boise, Idaho and Fort Collins, Colorado at 27.3 and 26.7 percent, respectively.
“Each year we hope the report will increase awareness about the importance of being tolerant and attentive behind the wheel,” says Mike Roche, Allstate’s senior vice-president of claims. Although car-crash fatalities are at their lowest level since 1949, more than 32,000 deaths occur every year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
One city has an even more notable record in the Allstate Report than Sioux Falls. Every year for the past eight years—ever since the Report has been produced—Phoenix, Arizona has topped the list for cities with populations over one million. With an average duration between collisions of 10.2 years, Phoenix drivers are 1.6 percent less likely to be involved in such an incident than the national average. Drivers in all other cities with populations above a million are more likely than the average to be involved in a collision.
Of course, frequency of collisions is by no means the only indicator of driving safety. Plenty of dangerous drivers manage to avoid incidents and collisions, despite their high-risk antics. Whether they know it or not—or care—many of the least-safe drivers on our roads rely on the defensive-driving skills, tactics, and awareness of the motorists around them. Not to mention pedestrians, who have to be on guard and ready to scurry away in a hurry if an apparent violator is approaching.
