In an article at The Washington Examiner, Taryn Luntz reports on the 2008 Allstate America’s Best Drivers report which shows that D.C. is the most accident prone city in the nation. Virginia not surprisingly, is close behind, probably tailgating even though they don’t know where they’re going. Alexandria and Arlington rank as the 11th and 13th most dangerous.
The criteria for “dangerous” is how many years, on average, pass between accidents per city resident. D.C. drivers average an accident every 5.4 years. Alexandra and Arlington drivers crash every 7 and 7.1 years, respectively. By contrast, the “safest” city in which to drive is Sioux Falls, SD, where drivers collide every 14.6 years. The cause, apparently, is bacterial.
“All three of those areas [D.C., Alexandria, and Arlington] suffer from the same affliction: gridlockitis,” AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman John Townsend said. “And that has many side effects, including wrecks.”
Yeah, and the fact that asshole Virginia drivers flood the streets!
Jabs about terrible Virginia drivers aside, this isn’t at all surprising. D.C. is a fairly populous city, and unlike other denser cities like N.Y., a lot of people own cars and even more people commute into the city by car — so much so that D.C. has recently taken measures to tip the balance in favor of its residents. Or in their own selfish words, “putting the needs of its residents and businesses before those of suburban commuters and that they are trying to create a walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented metropolis.”
Anyway, I guess my point is that this kind of study doesn’t really say much about D.C. drivers as much as much as it does the sort of driving that takes place in D.C. Reduce that sort of driving (add more viable mass transit options, or otherwise create a “walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented metropolis”), and you’ll reduce accidents. This is not true for the second most dangerous city, Glendale, CA, which owes its accident vulnerability to the long-held (and truthful) stereotype that Armenians are horrendous drivers.
I’ll add that despite 8 years of driving in/around the dangerous streets of the worst (D.C.) and 7th most (Philadelphia) unsafe cities to drive in, yours truly is accident free. Knock on wood.
