This City Has America’s Worst Drivers

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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This City Has America’s Worst Drivers

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are over 2 million car accidents a year, and over 40,000 people die in those accidents. The primary reason drivers have a crash is that they are tired, drunk, or speeding. A new study looks at the most dangerous drivers by city using such metrics.

The new Forbes Advisor’s “Cities With the Worst Drivers, Ranked” report measures the number of people in fatal crashes, total crashes, crashes involving drunk drivers, and those that involved speeding. The top 50 American cities represented the universe of geographies covered. Data came from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the U.S. Census Bureau. (These are the most challenging American cities to drive in.)

The ranking was based on a five-year metrics average from 2017 to 2021. Looking at the year after this period, the researchers wrote, “Fatal car accidents are increasing across the country, with the number of deadly crashes climbing by nearly 10% from 2020 to 2022.”

Albuquerque, New Mexico, topped the list of most dangerous cities to drive in. It had high incidence of fatal car accidents, drunk drivers, and distracted drivers. The city ranked first in fatal accidents involving a distracted driver (5.42 per 100,000). It ranked third highest in fatal crashes (17.11). And it also came in third for the number of people who died in fatal crashes (18.11).

On a scale of 100 to 0, Albuquerque had a score of 100.

These are the 10 American cities with the most dangerous drivers:

City Score Fatalities
Albuquerque 100.00 18.11
Memphis 98.51 25.96
Detroit 94.97 21.47
Tucson 93.02 17.02
Kansas City 91.19 16.85
Dallas 90.97 15.77
Louisville 83.88 14.99
Phoenix 80.65 14.59
Fort Worth 78.03 11.48
Tampa 77.13 15.42
Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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