Traveling for the holidays? Watch out for drivers from Texas, La.
Study ranks states with worst motorists
The millions of people who take to the nation’s highways for Thanksgiving should keep a sharp eye out for Texas and Louisiana license plates: A study from a car insurance group says drivers from those states are among the worst in the country.
The study by CarInsuranceComparison.com, a site that allows people to compare insurance companies, looked at data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. It analyzed crashes in five categories: fatalities per 100 million miles traveled, failure to obey traffic signals or wear seat belts, drunken driving, speeding and careless driving.
Rounding out the top 10 for worst-driving honors: South Carolina, North Dakota, Delaware, New Mexico, Nevada, Alabama, Arizona and Montana.
Texas leaped from fourth place to a tie with its neighbor, Louisi- ana, for first place this year. It’s the only state where drivers place among the top 15 in each of the five categories. Texas drivers rank third in drunken driving and ninth for fatalities per miles driven and speeding.
Texas transportation officials noted Nov. 4 that at least one person had died on a state road every day for 16 years. To end the streak of 55,578 deaths, officials urged motorists to buckle seat belts, pay attention to the road and never drink and drive.
Louisiana drivers rank the worst at obeying signals and fifth worst for fatalities per miles driven and careless driving, according to the study.
“Texas and Louisiana have been notorious for bad driving for four or five years of this study,” said Josh Barnes, a spokesman for CarInsuranceComparison.com.