Eat my dust: The cities with the most aggressive drivers in America – and Los Angeles is the worst
- Four California cities made the list of the most aggressive drivers in America: Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Diego, according to a report tracking high speed driving, rapid acceleration and braking
- Researchers ranked cities on the percentage by which drivers in each city are more aggressive than average
- Cities without a subway or reliable mass transportation system were more likely to make the list, experts say
Advertisement
Los Angeles is home to America’s most aggressive drivers, according to a new report.
The City of Angels is famous for having some of the worst traffic in the nation: drivers in and around the city spent an average of 164 hours battling road congestion in 2018, according to INRIX.
That could contribute to their number one rank on the Gasbuddy list of most aggressive drivers, which researchers compiled based on their users’ driving habits.
The average American driver has 180 aggressive incidents – moments of high speed driving, coupled with rapid acceleration and braking – over the course of a year.
Usually it’s one of those events that pave the way for road rage, GasBuddy analyst Patrick DeHaan told DailyMail.com.
‘It’s a bad thing, because that can incite road rage on both sides,’ he said. ‘From a money perspective it can cost drivers hundreds of dollars a year. There’s wear and tear on your car.’
Scroll down for the list
This map illustrates the cities with the most aggressive drivers in America, along with the average hours spent in traffic and the percentage by which local drivers are more aggressive than the average U.S. driver
Cities that saw more than the average amount of that behavior made the list – and based on those criteria Los Angeles drivers are 22 percent more aggressive than the average American driver.
In fact, four California cities made the list of cities with the most aggressive drivers, DeHaan said.
Part of the reason is that California – like many states – doesn’t have a strong public transportation system. States without a subway or reliable bus network were more likely to make the list, DeHaan said.
‘California is obviously very much a driving culture where there’s lack of quality infrastructure or mass transit that connects the state,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of congestion. It’s an area that weather doesn’t often prohibit people from getting out so it’s going to have a propensity to see more people on the road (year round).’
Philadelphia ranked second on the list, with drivers that were 21.83 percent more aggressive than the average American. Residents of the City of Brotherly Love spend an average of 112 hours a year in traffic, according to INRIX.
Sacramento ranked third (21.53 percent more aggressive), and commuters there lose an average of 69 hours to bad traffic congestion.
Atlanta came in fourth (20.26 more aggressive) for their behavior behind the wheel, and drivers there spent 108 hours in traffic in 2018.
San Francisco ranked fifth (19.02 percent), followed by San Diego (17.57 percent), Orlando (9.33 percent), Detroit (7.81 percent) and Austin, Texas (6.53 percent).
Las Vegas (6.44 percent) rounded out the top 10, followed by Charlotte (6.17 percent), Pittsburgh (5.3 percent), Phoenix (4.82 percent), Boston (4.34 percent) and Dallas-Fort Worth (4.07 percent).
Bad behavior on the road can lower gas mileage by as much as 40 percent, adding $477 to a driver’s annual gas bill, researchers found.
The 15 U.S. cities with the most aggressive drivers
This table shows the ranking of the 15 cities with the most aggressive drivers in America. The average American has 180 aggressive incidents per year. Cities that saw more than the average amount of that behavior made the list, along with the percentage by which their drivers surpassed the average. The table also shows average hours spent in traffic in each city