Does any city have a reputation for having good drivers?

[huskeroadgeek]

It's always seemed funny to me that people usually think that their local city has the worst drivers anywhere. I know people in Lincoln who swear that we have the worst drivers. Often, somebody will say something like "I know somebody who moved here from LA(or some other very large city) and they say the drivers here are worse than there". I've also heard nearly the exact same thing about Omaha, and Kansas City, and Nashville, and Chicago, and LA, and many other cities. I tend to think drivers are pretty much the same wherever you go-every city has its share of bad ones. Has anybody ever heard of a city having a reputation for good drivers, or think their local city has unusually good drivers?

[agentsteel53]

Has anybody ever heard of a city having a reputation for good drivers, or think their local city has unusually good drivers?

I was just going to say Omaha.  People are generally polite, don't randomly change lanes, stay in the right lane except to pass, don't floor it on yellow, etc etc.

generally, midwestern drivers, rurally and in cities of up to moderate size, are pretty easy-going from what I've noticed.  Maybe that's what the LA driver had seen as a problem ("the light's yellow! go, you moron!").

[Alps]

When you get far toward Canada in the Northeast, drivers tend to be quite well-behaved and orderly.  While my favorite is probably Ottawa, I'd give props to Burlington (VT) and Moncton (NB).

[corco]

I've been impressed by Nebraska drivers too.

A city that generally stands out for me as "wow, these drivers are good" is Kansas City. I could drive all day in Kansas City and never get grumpy at other drivers.  Omaha is decent as well.

Seattle drivers aren't horrible either, they're just really slow.

In a small sample size in fairly heavy traffic in Dallas I was pretty impressed as well- the only driver that pissed me off had Pennsylvania plates- but that very well could be a sample size issue.

There really seem to be systematic problems in some other cities- Utahns, for instance, seem to have no clue about lane discipline. Boise grew too fast, so there's more traffic than people's abilities generally allow, so that is usually disastrous as well. Denverites seem to have an issue with speed control on the freeway that isn't present in other cities (flow of traffic often goes from 80 to 60 to 80 over a mile for no apparent reason).


I do wonder, however, if perception of driving abilities isn't linked to the design of the local roadways. Kansas City drivers, for instance, seem good, but then again they have a well designed freeway system. It's easy to navigate around KC. On the flip side, I didn't particularly enjoy driving in Tulsa while I was there, and laid blame on the Oklahoma drivers, but certainly Tulsa has a horrible freeway system (left exits! everywhere!) that's not very friendly to people who don't know their way around Tulsa. It seems like you have to drive like a prick to get around Tulsa, but to drive around Kansas City you can be pretty relaxed- I wonder if it's the drivers themselves or the designs of the area freeways.

[agentsteel53]

A city that generally stands out for me as "wow, these drivers are good" is Kansas City. I could drive all day in Kansas City and never get grumpy at other drivers.  Omaha is decent as well.

agreed on KC.  I drove to KC about two weeks after I got my stick shift car (the first such thing I had owned and driven regularly!), and that was the town that really taught me the shift points and the exact feel of the clutch.  Kansas has a reputation for being flat, but KC is the farthest thing from that!  There were a few places where I was quite awkward at starting up a hill at a red light, and nobody honked at me when I stalled the engine.  Thanks, Kansas City!

[bugo]

I do wonder, however, if perception of driving abilities isn't linked to the design of the local roadways. Kansas City drivers, for instance, seem good, but then again they have a well designed freeway system. It's easy to navigate around KC. On the flip side, I didn't particularly enjoy driving in Tulsa while I was there, and laid blame on the Oklahoma drivers, but certainly Tulsa has a horrible freeway system (left exits! everywhere!) that's not very friendly to people who don't know their way around Tulsa. It seems like you have to drive like a prick to get around Tulsa, but to drive around Kansas City you can be pretty relaxed- I wonder if it's the drivers themselves or the designs of the area freeways.

I've lived in both Kansas City and Tulsa, and Tulsa drivers are FAR worse than KC drivers.  There's no comparison.  And you are right, you do have to drive like a prick to get around in Tulsa.  It's not just on the badly-designed freeways - the BA east of I-44 is a modern 8 lane highway with no left exits - and the drivers still clog up the left lane going 10-15 under the limit and merge without looking.  I got run off the BA one day by a jerk in a minivan.  The only good thing about the BA is that you can usually pass the assholes, albeit on the right.
Post Merge: August 25, 2010, 04:19:15 AM

generally, midwestern drivers, rurally and in cities of up to moderate size, are pretty easy-going from what I've noticed.  Maybe that's what the LA driver had seen as a problem ("the light's yellow! go, you moron!").

In Tulsa, drivers will stop for a yellow light even if there's plenty of time to clear the intersection.  Many times somebody in front of me has stopped in a situation that I would have gone through the light too if they had gone through it.

[Brandon]

Has anybody ever heard of a city having a reputation for good drivers, or think their local city has unusually good drivers?

I was just going to say Omaha.  People are generally polite, don't randomly change lanes, stay in the right lane except to pass, don't floor it on yellow, etc etc.

generally, midwestern drivers, rurally and in cities of up to moderate size, are pretty easy-going from what I've noticed.  Maybe that's what the LA driver had seen as a problem ("the light's yellow! go, you moron!").

Then, in the middle of the Midwest is Chicago where people tend to use the entire yellow cycle and blow through the red.  Quite a contrast from downstate Illinois.

[agentsteel53]

Then, in the middle of the Midwest is Chicago where people tend to use the entire yellow cycle and blow through the red.  Quite a contrast from downstate Illinois.

Chicago is definitely not midwestern in character.  Neither, really, is St. Louis.  At some point, population density takes over basic civility.

[triplemultiplex]

Ah, the whole question of what areas have good drivers and bad drivers is purely a function of population coupled with a little confirmation bias.  Big cities and big states are going to have more drivers of all kinds; good and bad so you're more likely to encounter a bad driver from California or Illinois than you are a bad driver from Iowa or West Virginia.  On top of that, we are more likely to remember an encounter with a shitty driver from a place that has a reputation for bad driving because it reinforces the perception we already have.  It's just the way our brains work.

Not to mention the sample of other drivers that any one of us encounters is hardly randomized and we're evaluating their skills by our individual, subjective standards.  Our judgment of the abilities of drivers from any given area is much more likely to be a reflection of our opinion of that area in general and the reputation it has in society at large.  The most we can do is trade anecdotes about the good, the bad and the ugly.