D.C., Baltimore Have Nation's Worst Drivers

Allstate safety survey has area at bottom of list

It’s official: We really are the nation’s worst drivers.

According to the latest annual Best Drivers Report by Allstate, wheeled Washingtonians get into a collision on average of once every 5.1 years, and have a 95.5 percent higher chance of being in an accident than the average American motorist.

The second-worst city on the list: Baltimore, with drivers, on average, experiencing a crash every 5.6 years, 79.4 percent higher than the national average.

This might give you pause about heading down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

But there’s a serious side to this. Washington can be a dangerous place for pedestrians and bicyclists. Greater Greater Washington reports that 13 pedestrians were hit last week, as were four cyclists. The statistics come from Struck In D.C., a blog devoted to covering such accidents.

TBD even had an item this week on one cyclist who was bumped by a car twice in the same area of Chinatown during a two-month period.

“The pedestrian is the most vulnerable because they're the slowest and they have no armor,” District Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein told WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi last month. “The cyclist is second-most vulnerable.”

More and more D.C.-area residents and commuters are using bikes to get around, and those behind the wheel need to be aware of them.  We don’t need any more ghost bikes.


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