The Most Dangerous Cities for Motorists

How do you calculate danger? As an abstract, it represents different things to different people.  Nonetheless, insurance carriers in the U.S. survive by evaluating the risk posed by a certain person, home, place, or automobile based on the potential dangers involved with each.

Location typically plays a large role in determining the price of home insurance, and it also drastically affects your auto insurance premium. Living in a dangerous city for drivers not only puts you at a much higher risk for an accident, it also could raise the cost of your car insurance.

The danger to a city’s motorists can be calculated in at least two main ways: the average number of years between accidents and the number of fatalities per capita. Insurance providers consider these and other factors (such as the car type, driver and credit history, and the local crime rate) into their decisions when setting premiums.

That means you need to know the statistics in your area, so you don’t get penalized for your neighbors’ bad driving habits. Following are ways to look at risk:

Cities with the most accident-prone drivers

Based on the average number of years between accidents, the following are bad cities in which to drive:

• Washington, D.C.: It has a population of nearly 600,000. The average time between accidents is 4.8 years (the average across the U.S. is about 1 accident every 10 years). That’s among the reasons the average D.C. resident pays at least twice the national average in insurance premium costs every year. There also large numbers of tourists and transient residents, so few people in the city know where they are going.
• Baltimore, MD: The city has a population of 637,418, and the average time between accidents is 5.3 years.
• Glendale, CA: It has a population of nearly 200,000, and the average time between accidents is 5.5 years.
• Newark, NJ: The city has a population of 278,154, and the average time between accidents is 5.9 years.
• Providence, RI: It has a population of 171,909, and the average time between accidents is 6 years.

The least accident-prone city is Sioux Falls, S.D., with an average of 13.8 years between collisions.

Dangerous driving cities based on fatalities per capita

This is, perhaps, the ultimate last word on risk. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, here are the places you face the greatest danger:

• Fort Lauderdale, FL: Fatality rate per 100,000 residents: 22.39.
• Orlando, FL: Fatality rate per 100,000: 19.95.
• Augusta, GA: Fatality rate per 100,000: 19.57.
• Little Rock, AK: Fatality rate per 100,000: 17.94.
• San Bernardino, CA: Fatality rate per 100,000: 17.12.

The city with the smallest fatality rate per 100,000 was Arlington, VA, with only 0.42.

Even if you don’t live in one of these most dangerous cities, you should be aware of accident rates in your area because they could have a major effect on both your safety and your car insurance premiums. Always drive carefully, especially in the cities listed above, and be aware of drivers around you.





Source: AutoInsurance