People often joke that their city has the worst drivers in the nation. Yet, in California, no one’s laughing about the state’s history of cities with some of the worst drivers anywhere. California ranks high for traffic accident injuries and fatalities. In 2022, there were nearly 4,500 fatal accidents across the state. In fact, per one report, only two other states have worse drivers. Read on to learn more…
Overall State Rankings
Before discussing California cities, it’s important to have some perspective. A December 2024 report about November 2023 to November 2024 incidents released by LendingTree found that Massachusetts ranked the absolute worst with 61.1 incidents per 1,000 drivers, and Rhode Island followed with 60.6 incidents per 1,000 drivers. California had 55 incidents per 1,000 drivers. Not all of these events involved accidents. California actually tied with Rhode Island with 39.7 accidents per 1,000 drivers. Massachusetts had the most at 44 accidents per 1,000 drivers over the course of that year.
Driving while intoxicated or speeding alone doesn’t seem to explain these numbers. Although California had the second highest rate for DUI (i.e., 3.5 DUIs per 1,000 drivers), both Massachusetts and Rhode Island ranked far lower. Additionally, California ranked fourth-best for speeding overall with only 1.2 incidents per 1,000 drivers but has cities that rank among the worst.
Some experts have argued that a high density of drivers in the top two geographically smaller states can easily explain the numbers associated with those states. California has plenty of geographic space but highly congested trafficways. LendingTree also considered other factors beyond those listed, including driving without insurance or a license, hit-and-run, reckless driving and safety violations.
How Do California Cities Rank?
In a separate study by Forbes, California cities revealed more details that show why the state as a whole has a lot of traffic problems. Forbes Advisor reviewed car maintenance, cost of vehicle ownership, driving experience and safety across 15 metrics in America’s most populated cities.
In 47 total metros, two California cities (i.e., Oakland and San Francisco) ranked among the top 10 worst cities to drive in with the worst drivers. Oakland ranked 100 out of 100 for the worst city, and San Francisco ranked third at 96.57 out of 100. Each city’s safety score, which counted for 21% of the total ranking after considering car thefts and fatal accidents per 100,000 residents, ranked 51.81 and 43.94, respectively.
What Factors Make Drivers the Worst?
Although a city’s rank depends greatly on the metrics used during the research, the biggest problems in the worst cities include the amount of time that drivers move or have to wait in traffic, traffic congestion, fuel costs and reckless driving behaviors. All of these factors can irritate or distract drivers and cause mistakes.
For example, a driver might take 20 minutes to travel a mere six miles in San Francisco. On average, most commutes take 35 minutes, which Forbes Advisor’s research revealed as the fourth-longest time among the cities reviewed for that specific study. The downtown speed of traffic often crawls at 12 mph. In all the cities reviewed by Forbes, San Francisco also had the highest gas prices at $4.72 per gallon of regular gasoline on average, and Oakland had the sixth highest at $4.52 per gallon.
Other studies revealed traffic conditions that drivers might not have enough experience with throughout the year, such as heavy rains in Los Angeles. Driving under the influence also made drivers the worst in many cities. According to Consumer Affairs, San Bernardino had the highest number of nationwide fatalities (i.e., 7.7 deaths per 100,000 people) caused by drunk drivers in 2022. It ranked fourth with speeding-related fatalities (i.e., 11.3 deaths per 100,000 people).