Not surprisingly, Las Vegas has bad drivers

All that griping you’ve done about how lousy Las Vegas drivers are?

All the moaning over how people here don’t know how to merge or drive too fast or drive too slow or don’t know where in the heck they’re going and should get off the gosh darn freeway?

It’s true. All of it’s true.

There is evidence.

Scientific evidence.

We’re not the worst, but we’re still pretty terrible.

Allstate, the nation’s second-largest car insurance company, comes out with a survey every year that ranks cities by how good their drivers are.

Kari Mather, an Allstate spokeswoman, said they use two years worth of data for each year’s survey, so anomalies like weather or road construction don’t have much of an effect.

Sioux Falls, S.D., won top honors this year as “America’s Safest Driving City.” Again. It’s the fifth time in the survey’s eight-year history the city has received the honor.

Rounding out the Top 5 were Boise, Idaho; Fort Collins, Colo.; Madison, Wisc., and Lincoln, Neb.

The worst?

Heh.

Washington, D.C.

Drivers there are more than twice as likely to get in a wreck as the national average. The other worst cities were Baltimore; Providence, R.I.; Hialeah, Fla., and Glendale, Calif.

The survey uses property damage claims made by drivers insured by Allstate to come up with its list. Any property damage claim from a wreck applies.

The company insures about 10 percent of all drivers in the country, so it’s a large sample size.

They measure how likely a driver in each city is to get in a wreck, then compare that to the average. Simple. Science.

The survey ranks the country’s 200 largest cities and provides some uber-obvious safety tips (Watch out for pedestrians! Don’t speed! Stay alert!). The best cities – Reno is No. 8 – tend to be smaller, while the worst tend to be large. That’s not always true – Phoenix is ranked 53rd – but it usually is.

Vegas, where everyone knows the car insurance rates are higher than the average?

Drivers here are 17 percent more likely to get in a crash than the national average.

We’re ranked the 136th safest driving city, up from 138th last year and 144th the year before.

So at least we’re getting better.

But are we really that bad?

Probably.

“There’s no question about the fact that the pace we put ourselves in, everybody being in a hurry to do whatever, it’s what gets us into trouble,” said Mike Seifer, an Allstate agent in Henderson who’s celebrating his 25th year in business.

He said he’s driven in cities large and small, across the country and across the world. None of them, except maybe New York, are like Las Vegas.

“Everybody continuously tries to beat lights, to cut corners,” he said.

This is also a 24-hour town, where if you’re out at 2 a.m., other cars will be on the road. That’s not true in most cities.

Seifer said drivers in Phoenix are noticeably different, and not just because of the 24-hour thing.

“It’s not even close,” he said. “Almost like they’re in a different mindset.”

It’s also the tourists. It’s always the tourists, isn’t it? Last year, 39 million people visited this place, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

None of those people get counted in our population stats, but it’s a given that more than a few of them were involved in car wrecks with locals.

There’s more, too.

Look at our roads.

Sure, other places have big roads and lots of growth and road construction, like we do.

But this is a place where we build entire neighborhoods before we build adequate roads to get there. Ever tried getting to Mountain’s Edge after work?

It’s also a place where we build freeways before there’s enough money to build, you know, exits. Look at Clark County 215 . We’re a city that has freeways with traffic lights.

So blame the drivers who are always in a hurry. Blame the tourists. Blame the never-ending road construction.

But blame the people who built this town, too.

It’s partly their fault.

If you have a question, tip or tirade, send an email to road
warrior@reviewjournal.com. Include your phone number.