Are East Coast Drivers Actually More Aggressive? Here's What the Data Says
Lisa Steuer McArdle
· 3 min read
East coast cities like New York and Boston seem to have a reputation for aggressive drivers who don’t follow proper
road safety
protocols. In fact, Massachusetts actually ranks No. 1 for safe driving out of states on both the East and West coasts—with only 4% of drivers having violations there.
New York and other east coast states
We reviewed more than 574,000
car insurance
quotes for drivers in all states on the east and west coasts, sourcing data from more than 1 million total customer quotes provided between July 2020 and July 2021.In doing this, we found that East and West Coast drivers are equally good drivers.
In some ways, the East Coast even beat out the West Coast in numbers. For instance, California drivers had 7% more violations than New York—where 20% of drivers had violations.
On the East Coast, after Massachusetts, the next best drivers are from Connecticut, where 13% had violations. Other coastal New England states ranked as follows: Maine (19.8% had violations), Rhode Island (20.8%), and New Hampshire (24.4%).
For a country-wide perspective, our data indicates that 27% of all drivers in the U.S. have violations.
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California and the West Coast
MORE: East Coast vs. West Coast: Living on One of These Coasts Will Cost You Extra
You could say the West Coast has a slightly better driving record than the East Coast, if you look at the numbers closely.
In California, 27% of drivers had violations, in Oregon the number was at 28%, and in Washington it was 27%. That means that the west coast states are all about the same when it comes to driving violations.
To compare, the states with the most driver violations out of the east coast states were New Jersey and South Carolina, which tied at 37%.
When you look at it from that perspective, the worst states for driving violations are actually on the East Coast, although it’s not too much of a difference.
Driving violations
MORE: It’s Official: New York Drivers Are Better Than New Jersey AND California Drivers
Surprisingly, there wasn’t much of a difference in the types of violations between the states. It’s interesting since the data covers areas with many different populations, roads, and landscapes.
But it seems no matter where you live on the East or West Coast, staying under the speed limit is a challenge for drivers—because drivers on both the East and West Coast most were most often cited for speeding.
The one exception was New York, where the most popular violation was failure to obey traffic signs.
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