Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Hampton Roads ranks in top 15 for worst drivers across country

(This map shows the top 15 cities with the worst drivers according to a study by QuoteWizard)

Atlanta, New York and Orlando may have bigger populations than the Hampton Roads metro area, but they also have millions of better drivers, according to one study.

Home to more than 1.7 million people, Virginia Beach and its surrounding metro area, Hampton Roads, was listed in the top 15 metropolitan areas with the worst drivers in the United States by a QuoteWizard study.

The study used 2 million data points to compare the country’s 75 most populated metro areas and determine which is home to the best and worst drivers. The data included the number of accidents, speeding tickets, DUIs and traffic citations issued in each city.

The higher a metropolitan area ranked on the list, the worse the drivers were, the study concluded.

Hampton Roads ranked as number 12 on the list of worst drivers, beating out major cities like Dallas, Detroit and Miami. It wasn’t the only Virginia region that topped the list — the Richmond metro area was ranked as number four for worst drivers.

In a similar QuoteWizard study released in December 2016, Virginia was ranked as number 3 for worst drivers in the United States. That study used Federal Highway Administration fatality data that provided the numbers of total accidents, speeding tickets, DUIs, citations and fatalities in a given state.

Data released by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles in 2015 showed that James City County, York County and Williamsburg were home to 114,495 licensed drivers at that time. The area’s drivers were involved in 1,972 wrecks, of which 13 were fatal. Almost half of those wrecks — 1.091 — resulted in injuries, and 109 were alcohol-related, including seven of the fatal crashes.

Click here to read the entire QuoteWizard study and see how Hampton Roads stacks up to other metropolitan areas around the country.

This article was published in partnership with our sister publication, Southside Daily.

Sarah Fearing
Sarah Fearing
Sarah Fearing is the Assistant Editor at WYDaily. Sarah was born in the state of Maine, grew up along the coast, and attended college at the University of Maine at Orono. Sarah left Maine in October 2015 when she was offered a job at a newspaper in West Point, Va. Courts, crime, public safety and civil rights are among Sarah’s favorite topics to cover. She currently covers those topics in Williamsburg, James City County and York County. Sarah has been recognized by other news organizations, state agencies and civic groups for her coverage of a failing fire-rescue system, an aging agriculture industry and lack of oversight in horse rescue groups. In her free time, Sarah enjoys lazing around with her two cats, Salazar and Ruth, drinking copious amounts of coffee and driving places in her white truck.

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