Does your state have the rudest drivers?

[Pete from Boston]

Everyone raise your right hand and repeat after me: "My state, [your state], has the worst, rudest drivers, and the most corrupt politicians, with the exception of those in [rival state]."

[DaBigE]

The worst (and/or rudest) drivers are always in the state where you live. Except for Ontario.

The Cheeseheads here claim otherwise.  Ask any of them, and they'll readily say it's the FIBs.

This cheesehead doesn't totally agree with that.

Are we worse than Illinois? Not quite, IMO (if you're excluding the Chicago metro). Worse than Iowa or Minnesota? I think the scale tips that way most of the time. I think we rival Florida for the most drivers that are clueless on the status of their turn signal (or how to properly use one). We're not the worst, but definitely far from the best (and there's plenty of videos from winter 2013-2014 to prove it).

But, Chicagoland is "Home of the FIB".  I mean, downstaters can be moronic at times thinking they can enter a freeway at 40 or go 5 below all the fucking time, but Chicagoans are their own breed of assholery.  Where else can you have, as a routine occurrence on one's commute have people exiting from the far lane, shoulder riding, left lane hogging, braking on curves (it's a freeway for fucksakes), running red lights in droves, mowing down pedestrians while on a bicycle, etc, etc, all within a mile.

Chicagoans (looking at a different poll of rude and bad drivers) are the worst drivers in the entire Midwest.

That's basically what I was trying to say. If you exclude Chicagoans, Wisconsin drivers are as bad if not worse than the rest of the Illinois drivers. Chicagoans included they are, hands down the worst of the Midwest. At least for most people I know, FIB applies to anyone from Illinois, with a few exceptions, not just Chicagoans.

[Henry]

I had to LOL at the fact that AK, ID, NV, UT and WY are the rudest states! And I somehow expected CA and GA to be ruder than they are, mainly because of traffic woes in Los Angeles and Atlanta, respectively (surprised no one brought those up yet).

[jeffandnicole]

I had to LOL at the fact that AK, ID, NV, UT and WY are the rudest states! And I somehow expected CA and GA to be ruder than they are, mainly because of traffic woes in Los Angeles and Atlanta, respectively (surprised no one brought those up yet).

I guess it can be kinda relative too.  If you're used to wide open roads and little traffic, and someone didn't let you out of a driveway and forced you to wait another few seconds, one may find that really rude and keep it on their mind.  Whereas in the much more populated cities and states, when someone cuts in from a driveway and forces their way in to a line of traffic, a motorist may not even think much of it.

I know I can get away with a lot more in a city where the police are mostly roaming from crime to crime and not worried about things like rolling thru a stop sign or using the all-red phase to make a left before the light turns green.  Those things are rude and illegal, but ignored and accepted as normal in some cities.  In rural areas, chances are you're going to be stopped.

[Zeffy]

I know I can get away with a lot more in a city where the police are mostly roaming from crime to crime and not worried about things like rolling thru a stop sign or using the all-red phase to make a left before the light turns green.  Those things are rude and illegal, but ignored and accepted as normal in some cities.  In rural areas, chances are you're going to be stopped.

As many times as I've been in Trenton, I've never seen a police car outside of the police stations. In fact, it's quite common to see people making lefts on red when it's safe to do so, and other things that you normally wouldn't do seems to be common place. Of course, I'm glad the police are more concerned on the negative-elements in the city rather than catching speeders or the sort. In Somerville, I dare not to go over 25 near the courthouse or on NJ 28 - I've seen police cars everywhere in that town.

[corco]

I can sort of see Idaho, for a couple reasons that aren't necessarily driver-related

Idaho has been lowering speed limits for the most part (not withstanding the legislature-mandated raise to 80), and the State Police has become stricter and stricter (more than 5 over, get pulled over), so there's a mix of long time locals who drive the old speed limits, newer locals who are scared of the cops, and flatlanders who can't drive in mountains. Add to that the expectation of slow-vehicle turnout use (if you're in Idaho and are holding up locals and do not pull over, prepare to get run off the road), and roads like Highway 55 can get to be pretty crazy. Then the Boise area has grown quite quickly over the last decade and hasn't really developed its own driving style - the California immigrants drive like Californians, the Utahns drive like Utards, the long time Idahoans still go slow in traffic, so yeah, there's some conflict on the highways.

Montana, simply by virtue of having more reasonable speed limits on all highways (basically just posting 70 everywhere), is much more pleasant to drive in.

Utah drivers, known as Utards by residents of surrounding states, are absolutely quite rude.

I can't explain Wyoming's presence high on the list. I've always found it to be a very easy state to drive in.