How Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota Rank As a Safe Driving States
How safe are you when you head out on any road? That's a question that has been on a lot of minds lately thanks to our wintry weather and what seems to be an early crop of serious potholes.
But overall how safe are the roads in the U.S.? According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, 1 out of 5 miles of roads in the U.S. is in poor condition.
But the news for us in the tri-state area is better than over half of the country. First of all, when you take the entire area into consideration, congestion just isn't much of a problem. And congestion was one of the major research categories.
Even on the busiest traffic days, our commutes are nothing like what some states' drivers deal with on a daily, sometimes minute-to-minute, basis. (Okay, maybe in our biggest cities - - sometimes. But we're talking overall here).
Now that all that is out of the way, just how safe are our roads in Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota?
- Iowa came out on top at Number 1
- South Dakota was safe enough to come in 22nd out of all the states in the nation.
- Minnesota was right behind us at 23rd.
To come to this conclusion, the scientists at Wallet Hub took into consideration a lot of factors including -
- Cost of vehicle ownership & maintenance
- Traffic & Infrastructure
- Access to vehicles
- Overall Safety
Within those four categories, they looked at things like gas prices, commute times, road and bridge conditions, DUI punishments, rates of uninsured drivers, car theft numbers, number of traffic fatalities, and even the likelihood of collision with animals.
After all that number crunching the top five safest states to drive in are:
- Iowa
- Georgia
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- North Carolina
To see the complete report, just check out Wallet Hub.
Sources: Wallet Hub and American Society of Civil Engineers