Have you ever met someone who has never been in the slightest fender bender? If you have, hopefully you shook their hand so that some of their luck rubbed off on you because most people have been involved in at least one car accident in their lifetimes. Some of the car accidents are worse than others, but to the insurance company, they all equate to money going out of their pockets.
Allstate Insurance Company does a national assessment of driver safety per city every year and have just released this year’s list. They take the number of claims per the population and through the magic of algebra (who said that it wouldn’t come in handy?) they were able to calculate the average number of years a driver goes between car accidents.
The good news is that the largest population centers in Washington State have lowered their average number of years between car wrecks. The bad news is that they’re still fairly close to the bottom of the list.
Tacoma came out 136th out of 200 in the nation on the average time between car accidents, beating out all cities in Washington State. All State says that drivers in the Tacoma area (population 197,181) have only 8.5 years between car accidents. This is up from their 2009 ranking of 150th. But on a national average basis, people who live in Tacoma are calculated to have a 17.5% better chance of getting into an accident than the national average.
Does that mean that people in Tacoma need to be 17.5% more alert than the average American driver? Yes…yes it does.
Bellevue seems like a quiet upper-scale community of nice people in nice cars driving to nice places. What many people don’t take into account is that it is also surrounded by traffic on all sides. To the north is SR 520, to the south is I-90, and to the east is I-405, only west is there peaceful water and one of the wealthiest places in the world, Mercer Island. All of the freeways are generally parking lots during both the morning and evening commutes and sometimes at random times during the day just for good measure. Why? Volume and car accidents.
Bellevue (population 123,771) replaced Seattle for the 134th spot on the list this year, with each driver only having 8.5 years between car accidents. Not much better than Tacoma and actually a plummet down from the 117th spot in 2009. This raised the chances of getting into an accident almost 6%. Now Bellevue drivers have a 17.1% chance above the national average of getting into an accident of some kind.
Is there an upside? No. If you live in Bellevue you most likely drive a luxury car that way more to fix. With your increased chance of accidents comes the increased expense. Sorry.
Seattle beat out Bellevue, but not enough for a smug eyebrow raise during a loud slurp of latte. The largest city in Washington with a population of around 598,541, ranked 128th on the list with an average time between car crashes of 8.6 years. Not a whopping change, but in the equation the chance of finding that person who has never gotten into an accident increases.
Seattle has the pleasure of also moving up the list, almost ten places from 134th last year. The best news is that Seattle drivers lowered their percentage chance of getting into an accident. Now they have a 16% higher chance of getting into an accident than the national average, down from 17.5%.
Does the 1.5% matter? Ask yourself that the next time you narrowly swerve out of the way of an oncoming car drifting across the center line.
Vancouver is the southern portal to the rest of the world and also a fairly substantial population center in it won right (pop. 163,168) even though some people still consider it merely a suburb of Portland, OR (ranked 113th on the list). But, its not, in fact its in a whole different state and they’ve proven to be much better drivers, even above the national average.
Vancouver ranked 64th with the drivers enjoying a comfortable 10.1 years between accidents. This is quite a jump from last year where they ranked, still an impressive, 77th in the nation. Vancouver residents are 0.9% less likely to get into an accident than the national average. Not much, but its something.
Of course, if you ask a person from Vancouver, their rank would be higher if it weren’t for the Portland people driving through and causing all of the accidents.
Spokane drivers blew everyone away as by far the safest drivers in Washington state. The small city (population 202,319) ranks 29th this year, up from 34th in 2009. We do a lot of stories about the car accidents in Spokane, making seem like there are more, but that’s just because there is more media competition than other areas, all with the “if it bleeds it leads” approach to journalism. Of course, this skews reality.
Spokane drivers actually enjoy a significantly lowered chance of getting into an accident. They are 8.8% less likely to get into a wreck and go 11 years between car accidents. This is excellent news and not really surprising from a town that has no major Universities or sports franchises, which significantly raise the number of DUI and speeding accidents.
Perhaps they can keep this up and next year we’ll see them get even safer. Congratulations Spokane!
Washington state is not the worst or the best in the country for car accidents, but Governor Gregoir is trying to set a precedent around the country to becoming the state with the lowest number of traffic deaths. The “Target Zero” program, introduced earlier in 2010, is aimed to eliminate all traffic related deaths by 2030.
There are those who certainly doubt if that is possible. The caring staff at Phillips Webster are behind the initiative and hope that it achieves its goal in half the time. We believe it is attainable through strong DUI enforcement, seat belt initiatives like “Click it or Ticket” and the new distracted driving laws.
Phillips Webster represents families of victims who have been injured or died in car accidents in Washington state. They are skilled attorneys in wrongful death lawsuits and personal injury lawsuits with years of experience that they will use to assure that you get the compensation you deserve. Call today for a free consultation.
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Main intersections in the United States as a whole are pretty standardized across the country. Businesses on all four corners, generally involving fast food, banking, gas station, or strip mall. The traffic ebbs and flows seamlessly throughout the day, but all of a sudden one driver is impatient or not paying attention, and what seemed to be a flawless system goes haywire in a mass of broken glass and twisted metal. The details are sketchy, but that’s just what may have happened last evening in Everett.
