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Report: Sioux Falls Is the Safest City for Driving

New report reveals the safest, and most dangerous, cities for drivers.

By Claire_Martin Aug 31, 2012 3:58AM
Indianapolis I-70 photo by Goldwiser.If you're motoring through Sioux Falls, S.D., chances are good that you won't get rear-ended or sideswiped. In fact, drivers in this city require bodywork for their cars as a result of a traffic accident only once every 13.8 years. 

Sioux Falls tops Allstate Insurance's new list of American cities with the safest drivers. Among bigger cities, Indianapolis (pictured); Tucson, Ariz.; and Lincoln, Neb. are standouts for driver safety.

Allstate actuaries analyzed automobile property-damage claims for a two-year period (2009 to 2010) to determine the national average. Drivers in Sioux Falls were 27.6 percent less likely to get into car accidents than the national average. Boise, Idaho; Fort Collins, Colo.; Madison, Wis.; and Lincoln, Neb., round out the five safest driving metropolises for cities of any size.

Perhaps not surprisingly, New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago are not particularly safe for drivers. Drivers in Los Angeles are 48.5 percent more likely to get into traffic accidents than the national average, and tend to do so once every 6.7 years. New York City's numbers are only slightly better, and Chicago's represent a further marginal improvement, with seven years between collisions. Philadelphia is downright dangerous: According to the report, you're 64 percent more likely to get into a crash there.

Smaller cities provide driving challenges such as fewer street lights and crosswalks. Big ones are easier to get lost in and are prone to tricky driving conditions such as stop-and-go traffic. The keys to safer driving, regardless of where you are, are simple -- but they can be easy to forget. Things such as using turn signals and headlights, minimizing in-car distractions and obeying traffic laws can help keep you out of the body shop, or the hospital.

That said, Allstate cites statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that show car-collision fatalities are at their lowest point since 1949, with an average of 32,000 per year.

The full lists are included below.

Safest overall:
Safest big cities:
Safest cities respective of their size:
[Source: Allstate.]
1Comment
Sep 1, 2012 10:50AM
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New York City Drivers are very SLOW.  They brake for everything, even GREEN lights.  Many brake for the green light, then floor the accelorator when the light turns red, not only nearly causing a collision to the guy behind them, but then also going thru the intersection at the last minute.  They do not observe rules to move to the right when driving slow, and they do anything they can to keep from getting passed, even when they are going 15mph under the speed limit or more.  There was person near where I lived who rolled a car on its side attempting to parallel park it.(now thats bad driving).  Yet drivers in South Florida are even worse.  Here you have extremley slow drivers peppered in with extremely fast drivers.  No-one uses their turn signals.  Cars often have one or more brake light out, no head lights at night, things hanging/falling off the car while they are on the highway.  They will go 10 to 20mph over the limit, then randomly jam on the brakes when approaching a gradual turn on the highway.  NO-ONE KNOWS WHAT AN EXCELLERATION LANE IS, THEY GET ON A HIGHWAY WITH A LIMIT OF 65 OR EVEN 70 AT ABOUT 30MPH AND ATTEMPT TO MERGE WITHOUT SPEEDING UP  Red lights seem to be merely suggested stops, which some drivers flagerently ignore  And recently, the New York thing of slowing for the green then going thru the red has been catching on.

OK, went off a tangent there, but you get my points.

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