Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State for its population’s eagerness to go into battle for this country, but it may just be developing another reputation — for bad drivers. That’s because when Consumer Affairs published its graphic showing the 10 cities with the worst drivers in the country, two of them — Memphis and Knoxville — were located there.
In fact, those cities were ranked No. 1 and No. 2, in that order, while no other state had more than one location listed. The results are based on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2024 estimates of traffic deaths that — overall — did show a slight decline in annual fatalities, from 40,901 in 2023 to 39,345 last year. On the other hand, traffic deaths remain a “public health crisis” in this country, and the rate of total traffic fatalities in Memphis reached 38.79 per 100,000 people in 2024. Knoxville’s rate was 31.49 traffic fatalities per 100,000 residents.
But Consumer Affairs dug deeper than that, too. Its overall rankings further took into account the number of crashes per 100,000 people that involved things like driving under the influence, speeding, and just plain “bad driving” — as defined by a variety of aggressive or careless maneuvers. For example, in ranking Waterbury, Connecticut, in third place, Consumer Affairs pointed to the city’s driving fatalities that involved someone being under the influence. Waterbury’s rate, 7.87 deaths per 100,000 people, was more than four times the national number.
Read more: These Are The Most Dangerous Cars Our Readers Have Driven
Where are America’s worst-behaved drivers?
Cars crowd along Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki, Hawaii – Jewhyte/Getty Images
Of course, numbers can be funny things. As the old saying goes, statistics can be considered one of the three basic forms of untruths, along with lies and damned lies. Here’s what we mean: While NHTSA made its pick for worst drivers based on fatal outcomes, that — although important — certainly isn’t the only way to look at the matter. For instance, when Forbes Advisor set out to analyze folks’ on-road behavior, like distracted driving or make aggressive moves to get ahead of traffic, Tennesseeans were among the best-behaved drivers in the nation last year.
In this study, which relied on self-reporting from drivers, the worst driving behaviors were found in Alaska, Wyoming, New Mexico, Oregon, and right at the bottom Hawaii — where 20% of drivers admitted to changing lanes/turning without using their indicators, 13% to going at least 20 mph above the speed limit, and 8% to running red lights. Indeed, the Aloha state was the top-ranked state in all three categories, albeit in a tie with Texas and Oregon in the last one.
In addition, and again tying with other states, Hawaii had the second-highest percentage of people admitting to driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol and the fourth-highest percentage of drivers texting behind the wheel. So it’s probably a good thing for those states that the new General Motors invention that analyzes behavior to help get dangerous drivers off the road is still a work in progress.
Where are the best drivers in the United States?
A vintage Ford Mustang on the streets of Brownsville, Texas during a parade – Roberto Galan/Getty Images
Checking with one more source — Allstate insurance’s 2025 Best Drivers Report — gives us yet even more data points for deciding where the country’s best and worst drivers live. Now, right off the bat, the statistics in this study show that Knoxville, which Consumer Affairs rated as the city with the second-worst drivers in America, was the 17th in the country for longest timespan between collisions. In other words, drivers in that city are about 8.4% less likely to be involved in a collision than the national average. True, that’s a fair way off the best city in this study, but it’s significantly better than the Consumer Affairs results.
FWIW, Memphis, the worst city according to Consumer Affairs, finished 88th among the 200 cities ranked in the Allstate research. But it was Boston drivers who were once again declared the absolute worst in the annual rankings. They’re an amazing 244% more likely to be involved in a crash than the national average and can expect to be involved in a collision just about every three years. Actually, three Massachusetts cities made the bottom five, since Worcester and Springfield finished 197th and 196th.
The other side of the spectrum had America’s best drivers coming from Brownsville, Texas, where the relative collision likelihood was nearly 26% lower than the national average. Rounding out the top five were Boise, Idaho; Fort Collins, Colorado; Cary, North Carolina; and Laredo, Texas.
Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox, and add us as a preferred search source on Google.
Read the original article on Jalopnik.
