June 28, 2017
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice
Vehicles on I-676 cross under the Family Court pedestrian bridge between 18th and 19th streets.
Allstate is out with its 13th annual roundup of the nation's best drivers, and Philadelphia's ranking is, well, nothing to brag about.
The insurance giant released its "Best Drivers Report" Tuesday, which looks at 200 cities across the nation and their surrounding metropolitan areas to find out which has the safest drivers.
Allstate determined the rankings based on its own claims data, breaking down the list based on the average years between claims, population density, weather and "hard-braking events per every 1,000 miles," when a driver slows eight mph over the course of one second.
The insurance company, which partnered with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for the report, said that there is a direct correlation between hard-braking events and collisions.
Philly was ranked the 191st safest driving city, rising one spot from last year. Yikes.
Allstate's report found that drivers get into a collision every 6.1 years in the city of Philadelphia, compared to the nation's average of every 10 years. The report also found that Philly drivers have nearly 40 hard-braking events per every 1,000 miles, compared to the nation's average of 19.
Philly's metropolitan area didn't fare any better with 9.3 years between claims and 23.7 hard-braking events.
Kansas City had the nation's safest drivers, according to Allstate's report, with an average of 14.9 years between each claim and just about 10 hard-braking events per 1,000 miles.
Allstate released the report ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, which the IIHS has found to have the most collision-related deaths each year. A recent five-year study from IIHS found that there are an average of 118.4 accident-related deaths on Independence Day, compared to an average of 90 per day in the U.S.
"With the improving economy and more driving, we're unfortunately seeing more crashes and more crash deaths," IIHS President Adrian Lund said in a news release. "Summer travel for vacations and recreation is often riskier than the daily commute."
Check out Allstate's complete report here.
