Charlotte Is The 15th Worst City For Drivers Nationwide

Well if this isn't confirmation bias if it ever existed. It's not your imagination. Charlotte drivers really are THAT BAD. But we know that we see it every day. Turn signals are rarely used, stop signs are used merely as a suggestion, and running red lights-that's just to be expected. I wish I knew what could be done to stop it. CMPD doesn't seem to have any interest in enforcing traffic laws so I guess I can't blame people for ignoring them. Though you know, just doing the right thing isn't frowned upon. When I stumbled across this study by Forbes Advisor, that listed Charlotte as the 15th worst city for drivers nationwide, I couldn't help nodding my head in agreement.

According to Forbes Advisor, the number of fatal car accidents is increasing nationwide. With the rates of occurrence rising nearly 10% from 2020 to 2022. This risk is absorbed by everyone when they get behind the wheel. So, which cities have the worst drivers?  Well, the worst was Albuquerque, New Mexico. I don't know much about New Mexico but this does surprise me.

Charlotte came in at number 15 (out of a top 25 worst drivers list). Forbes data shows that the Queen City has 10.18 fatal car accidents per 100,000 residents. 3.81 of those for every 100,000 residents were due to a drunk driver. Data for this study came from the National Highway Safety Patrol and the US Census Bureau. To create the list Forbes Advisor looked at the 50 most populated US Cities and compared them across 5 metrics.

You can read the full study and details about why each city ranked where they did here.

Driving these days can be a terrifying experience. Especially in Charlotte, it seems the drivers get worse and more aggressive by the day and traffic laws are a mere suggestion. But it's actually the rural roads that are of concern in North Carolina. New research by Florida Personal Injury Lawyers Anidjar & Levine looked at 10 years' worth of data including the number of annual miles driven on rural roads and the number of rural road accidents for each state. They used this data to determine which states had the highest occurrence of rural crashes. And it's North Carolina that has the most dangerous rural roads in America.

That's right North Carolina ranked first on this list. And that's not something to celebrate. The state has 70.45 accidents for every billion miles driven. Another interesting statistic is that 44.3% of these crashes occur on roads with a 55 mph speed limit. That's 64.7% higher than the national average which is 26.9%. In some ways, this makes sense as there are a lot of rural roads in North Carolina. But when you consider the sheer size of other states it is a little crazy that we topped the list.

To create this list the researchers at Anidjar & Levine gathered data from 2012-2021 from agencies including NCDOT, FARS, the U.S. Census Bureau, and FHWA. The rural road accident rate was calculated by dividing the annual miles driven on rural roads by the number of vehicles involved in rural road accidents for each state. Keep reading below to see the top five states with the most dangerous roads in America. North Carolina isn't the only Carolina in the top 5 either. Stay safe out there North Carolina. Thanks to our friends at Journo Research for sharing this research with us.

Rural crashes per billion miles driven: 60.37

10  year change: 38.4%

Rural crashes per billion miles driven: 63.6

10  year change: -6.3%

Rural crashes per billion miles driven: 67.18

10  year change: -33.6%

Rural crashes per billion miles driven: 68.74

10  year change: -39.0%

Rural crashes per billion miles driven: 70.45

10  year change: -11.2%