The “good hands” people at Allstate have made official what anyone who has spent any time in Los Angeles already knows — Angelenos are among the worst drivers in the nation.
The insurance company’s “America’s Best Drivers Report” released last week finds that the average American driver will get into an accident roughly every ten years. Not here in sunny Los Angeles, though; drivers here get into a crash once every 6.6 years. That places it second worst among cities with more than a million people (behind Philadelphia) and 18th worst among the 200 cities in the study. That means Los Angeles drivers are 50{12171f546f383b1da81aa82b1e35665b3c81186ec331252ad3a3d17392a193cf} more likely to get into an accident than the rest of the country.
That seems about right. I mean, I love Los Angeles, but… drivers here are awful. The infamous “road rage” incidents have left Angelenos with a reputation of being aggressive drivers. That cannot be further from the truth; rather, they are not aggressive enough. I can’t tell you how many times I (an admittedly aggressive driver) have sat behind someone going too slow in the left lane. One slow driver like that can clog up an entire highway or street. It’s as if they don’t know the rules.
Then there are the drivers who are looking for an address so they go five miles an hour. Just pull over! You are not walking on the street. You have to maintain a reasonable speed.
That goes to how discourteous LA drivers are. They don’t care about anybody else on the road. It’s all about them. And God forbid you have to change lanes — they will never let you in.
I am not the only one who feels this way. There is the aptly named blog L.A. Can’t Drive that highlights the failings of the city’s drivers.
It’s shocking, really; for a city built around the car, you’d think people here would know how to drive. Well, you’d be wrong.