April 26, 2017
Pennsylvanians have some serious work to do on their driving habits, and one of the state's cities is dreadful enough to be considered the worst in the United States, according to a new study from EverQuote Insurance.
And New Jersey residents shouldn't gloat. The drivers on the east side of the Delaware River did not perform much better.
The EverDrive Safe Driving Report for 2016-17 collected data using the company's app, which provides tips to drivers by diagnosing their decisions behind the wheel and producing a report.
As a whole, over an 11-month period ending in March, 150,000 American drivers scored a 79/100 based on five metrics tracked by the app:
• Phone use (80): 38 percent of drivers use their phones while driving
• Speeding (79): 36 percent of drivers exceeded the posted speed limits
• Acceleration (85): 21 percent of trips contained aggressive acceleration
• Braking (83): 32 percent of trips included harsh braking
• Turning (86): 16 percent of drivers executed poor turning techniques
In four out of five of these categories, Pennsylvania landed in the bottom five. The state was ranked 46th in speeding, 48th in acceleration, 47th in braking and 49th in turning. Only in phone use did Pennsylvania show solid behavior compared to the Southern states, where nearly half of all logged trips included phone use.
The silver lining for Philadelphia drivers is that we were not the worst in the United States. That distinction belongs to Pittsburgh, which tied New York City, according to additional data provided to local station KDKA-TV.
Philly may have been robbed of best cheesesteak by a poll skewed in favor of Pittsburgh, and we may sit in the shadow of New York City, but somehow this indictment helps rectify that at least a little bit.
Here are the five states with the best (maybe because barely anyone lives there?) and five states with the worst overall drivers in the country:
1. Montana
2. Wyoming
3. Alaska
4. North Dakota
5. South Dakota
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46. New Hampshire
47. New Jersey
48. Pennsylvania
49. Connecticut
50. Rhode Island
If you want to see how you fare as a driver, download the EverDrive app for iOS or Android.
