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Study shares the state with the worst drivers in the U.S.—it's not New York or California

It ranked highest for both accidents and general traffic-related incidents.

Photo credit: Canva

We could probably all stand to be a little more careful on the road.

Sorry Bay Staters—Massachusetts has the worst drivers in America, according to a recent study from the finance site Lending Tree. Data was collected from all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., from Nov. 5, 2023 to Nov. 4, 2024 and researchers found Massachusetts ranked No.1 for the highest number of reported incidents—including speeding, DUIs and citations—with 61.1 incidents per 1,000 drivers.

But wait, there’s more. Of those reported incidents, Massachusetts also had the highest accident rate, with 44.4 accidents per 1,000 drivers, giving it the boasting right of being the only state to rate above 40.

Lastly, Massachusetts also had two DUIs per 1,000 drivers, tying with Tennessee for the 11th-highest DUI rate in the U.S. Yikes.

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Unsurprisingly, these factors have caused Massachusetts to have some of the highest car maintenance and insurance costs in the country, according to WalletHub, which put the state not in dead last place, but at 45 out of 50.

As for the why of it all, CBS affiliate WBZ partnered with the Waze app back in September and discovered that traffic in the state increased by more than 5% between 2022 and 2023. The data also showed increases in specific cities— 10% more in Newton, 15% more in Framingham, 12% in Salem, just to name a few.

And why is traffic increasing? Namely due to companies mandating a return to the office and employees opting to drive themselves rather than use public transportation. With increased traffic and brutal winters, it’s easy to see why this would be the perfect recipe for less-than-stellar driving conditions.

However, it’s not all bad statistics. Massachusetts did get good marks somewhere. Its speeding-related incident rate was a mere 1.3, tying it with New Jersey for the fifth-lowest speeding-related incident rate.

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Massachusetts is in good company with Rhode Island, California, Washington D.C., and New Jersey, the next four states with the worst drivers. Meanwhile, Arkansas, Michigan, Vermont, Kentucky, and Oklahoma were the top five states.

Let’s be honest: at some point in our lives, we’ve all thought that the city we live in has the worst drivers. We’ve tried (and failed) to repress our road rage as someone cut us off, groaned as someone failed to use their turn signal or waved our fist at someone tailgating us. And we've all seen someone distracted on the road by their phone—though let's face it, most of us have been guilty of that modern day sin.

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At the very least, we point a finger at the next state over. For many of us that wouldn't be the case, but if you live in New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, or New York, you’d be correct! Enjoy living in superiority!

Although I must say, as a Californian I truly thought the Sunshine State would take home the title. Our freeway systems alone…oy. I suppose we'll have to settle for 3rd place in a contest nobody wants to win.

See where your state ranks here.

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Gen Z is strangely averse to getting their driver's license. What the heck is going on?

Compared to earlier generations, today's teens are in no rush to drive and parents are scratching their heads.

Photo by Fabian Albert on Unsplash

Many teens and young adults are in no hurry to hop behind the wheel.

I and pretty much every Gen X teen I grew up with couldn't wait to learn to drive. Getting a driver's license was a huge milestone that meant freedom, independence, the ability to go to our friends' houses whenever we wanted to (so long as we had access to a car) and more—and we were totally psyched about it.

Today's teens are … different. While some are just as eager as we were to get behind the wheel, there's a whole bunch of young folks who have little to no interest in driving. As USA Today reported last year, "Data collected from the Federal Highway Administration and analyzed by Green Car Congress showed that in 2018 approximately 61% of 18-year-olds in the U.S. had a driver’s license, down from 80% percent in 1983. The number of 16-year-olds with licenses decreased from 46% to 25% in the same period."

My oldest kid was interested, but took her sweet time and didn't get her license until she was 18. My current 18-year-old still doesn't have her license and has zero desire to get it, despite having completed driver's ed. She just takes the bus and walks everywhere. Other parents in my immediate social circle have similarly disinterested-in-driving young adults, and I keep seeing parents posting about it on social media with a sense of bewilderment.

What the heck is going on with Gen Z when it comes to driving?

One obvious difference between today's young people and their parents' generation is the way they communicate with their peers. If we wanted to talk to our friends, we had two choices—a phone call on a landline (which was sometimes occupied and that our parents didn't want us to monopolize) or seeing our friends in person. Kids today? Countless options to talk to their friends in various ways without having to go anywhere. While my generation thought video calls on handheld devices were the stuff of Jetsons-like future eras, our kids have never known life without them.

The desire to go out and be social isn't as urgent with kids today because it simply isn't as necessary. Despite us all lamenting how much time kids spend on devices, in my experience, they're often using them to socialize—sometimes a lot more than we were ever able to at the same age. Though nothing can replace face-to-face social time, there's not as much of a need to drive if you can always "hang out" with your friends online.

Another difference is the expansion of public transportation and improvements in attitudes toward using it. Unless you lived in New York City, using public transportation just wasn't cool when we were kids. But Gen X has grown up being hammered with climate change awareness since birth, so riding the city bus is viewed as the preferred, environmentally friendly choice over driving a car. Throw in ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, and the need for driving yourself diminishes drastically.

There's also some anxiety about cars in general that may be playing a role in the younger set due to, ironically, how much car safety has increased. My generation was the first to have seatbelts as a standard feature in all cars—and it wasn't even mandatory for everyone to wear a seatbelt in my state until I was 11. Our kids, on the other hand, have had all manner of car seats and booster seats reinforcing the idea that cars are inherently unsafe from birth. (That's not a bad thing, it's just a thing.) Young people today are more aware of the dangers of driving, just as they're more aware of everything thanks to the internet, and with the rise in anxiety in general, fear may be keeping a lot of teens away from the wheel. Again, there is some data to back this up. In a survey of nondriving teens by insurance comparison website The Zebra, nearly 25% responded that they don't have a license because they are afraid to drive a car.

The reasons for Gen Z not wanting to drive may be varied, but not wanting to learn to drive doesn't mean they shouldn't. My stance as a parent is that driving is an important life skill, like swimming, so even if you have no intention of driving, it's important to know how. If my adult kids ever get stuck someplace and need to be able to drive legally, I want them to be able to do that, so I want them to get a driver's license as well.

We don't seem to be heading toward a truly carless future anytime soon, so Gen Z may want to rethink their reticence and at least learn how to drive, even if they have no intention of driving.

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Parenting

Video showing front blind zones in trucks and SUVs is a must-see for all drivers and parents

Knowing this could save a life.

Photo by Jan Baborák on Unsplash

Large SUVs and trucks can have huge blind zones out front.

Since the invention of the automobile, humans have worked on innovative ways to make driving and riding in cars safer. From seatbelts to airbags to electronic stability control, cars today are safer than they've ever been.

Some safety features are also designed to make driving safer for people outside the car. Backup cameras have made backing out of a driveway far less nerve-wracking, allowing drivers to see those tiny tykes on trikes who sometimes dash by on the sidewalk. (Seriously the best invention.)

But along with increased safety features have come car design trends that make some aspects of new vehicles less safe. SUVs have been around for a while, and many families buy them for both comfort and safety. But as many SUVs have gotten bigger and taller, the blind zones in front of the car have become much larger and more dangerous than people might think.

KSDK News 5 reported in 2019 that "backover" accidents with children had reduced dramatically, thanks to backup cameras. However, "frontover" fatalities—children killed when a car rolls forward and hits them—had gone up over 60% in the previous seven years, largely due to the increasing size of trucks and SUVs.

"The hoods are much higher on these newer vehicles which is creating higher blind zones and people really just aren't aware that there's a blind zone in front where they can't see," Amber Rollins, director of KidsAndCars.org told the outlet.

The consumer investigation team at NBC 4 News in Washington, D.C. recently did a demonstration showing how far out a child has to be before a driver of a large SUV can see them in front of the vehicle. Most of us probably assume we can't see a few feet ahead of us, but as the demonstration illustrates, the blind zone of a large SUV can be a whopping 16 feet.

The video from the report is eye-opening. Senior investigative producer Rick Yarborough shared on Twitter that producing this story has changed the way he drives.

Watch the demonstration to see how large some SUV blind zones really are:

Front-facing cameras would go a long way in helping drivers see what's right in front of them, but unfortunately, they aren't that easy to come by.

While backup cameras have been required by federal law on almost all new American-made vehicles since 2018, there are no requirements to have front-facing cameras and few manufacturers include them as a standard feature—a fact that Michael Brooks of the Center for Auto Safety says needs to change.

"I think the part that frustrates me the most is seeing safety technology sold as a luxury when everyone should have it," he told NBC 4.

Indeed, if we have technology that can save lives, it shouldn't be considered an upgrade like a better sound system or leather seats. As cars get larger, we need to make sure that they have the safety features necessary to reduce danger and save lives.

In the meantime, videos like this can help inform drivers—and parents of young children as well—about the dangers of blind zones. We need know and our kids need to know that those zones are much larger than we may think they are.

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Women are hitting the road in Saudi Arabia. Here's why it's a huge deal.

Saudi Arabia has issued its first set of driver's licenses to women, marking a new era for women's rights in the country.

On June 4, 2018, 10 Saudi Arabian women received their licenses, and many more are on the way. Though these women already held driver's licenses from other countries, including Canada, the U.K., and Lebanon, they took a driving test before being granted licenses in Saudi Arabia.

The announcement came ahead of a ban on women driving that is set to be lifted on June 24. Saudi Arabia's King Salman decided to change the antiqued laws last year, and licenses are finally going into effect for thousands of women around the country. The country's Centre for International Communication has predicted 2,000 women will join that first group of 10 by next week, according to The Telegraph.

"The general directorate of traffic today started replacing international driving licenses recognized in the kingdom with Saudi licenses, in preparation for allowing women to drive," the official Saudi Press Agency said in a statement.

The move marks a historic victory for women's rights in Saudi Arabia.

The nation has long been criticized for its troubling treatment of women. It was the only country in the world where women were not allowed drive, and incredibly brave women activists have been fighting against the rule for years.

While we should absolutely celebrate this important feminist win, we should be careful in how we discuss Saudi Arabian women's lives and rights.

As predominately Muslim country, Saudi Arabia — like many religiously led nations — has subjected its women to many ideas and standards that are problematic. But Westerners often discuss women's rights in Saudi Arabia from a pitying perspective, which creates an air of superiority.

This response isn't OK, but it's kind of the pot calling the kettle black. With European countries like Ireland just reversing laws that prohibit abortions and America currently grappling with a pervasive culture of sexual assault, it's clear that all nations are still earning how to treat its women like equals.

Photo by Amer Hilabi/AFP/Getty Images.

Saudi Arabian women have fought long and hard for their right to get behind the wheel, and their actions will have implications for women around the world.

As evidenced in Ireland, the U.S., Kenya, and Saudi Arabia, women are fighting for their right to live freely, safely, and happy.

Now, Saudi Arabia's got the keys to keep the mission moving.  

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