How Bad Are Missouri Drivers? Pretty Bad.

MISSOURI — If your commute was a little rough this morning, you may not be alone. A new report say Missouri has the third worst drivers in the country. We all know St. Louisans, in particular, tend to treat stop lights more like guidelines than actual rules, but it's nice to have some official confirmation.

The financial advising company SmartAsset released its second annual study on states with the best and worst drivers this month. The study looked at four metrics: percent of drivers with insurance, number of DUIs per driver, average number of deaths per miles driven and how often residents Google terms such as traffic ticket or speeding ticket.

It's not just DUIs, though. Another recent study found that almost half of Missouri teens admitted to texting while driving, which experts say can be just as deadly.

Missouri tied with California for the number three spot, falling between Tennesee and New Mexico for bad driving. Across the river, Illinois placed much better, all the way down at number 40.

Here's what the authors said:

The Show-Me State ties with California for third. Missouri ranks 10th for rate of googling traffic tickets or speeding tickets, an indication that residents are getting tickets more than in other states. Many drivers here also forgo insurance, meaning accidents can get costly. The death rate per 100 million driven miles is also high in Missouri. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that 1.28 people die for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled in Missouri. That figure is up from 1.21 in 2015.

And here’s the complete breakdown for Missouri:

• Percent of drivers with insurance: 86 percent
• Number of DUIs per driver: 4.58
• Average number of deaths per miles driven: 1.28

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Bad drivers are a drag. Literally. They cause headache-inducing traffic congestion — which cost the U.S. an estimated $305 billion last year — and can lead to costly crashes and even death.

So if you’re planning a road trip anytime soon, you might want to avoid Mississippi, Tennessee and basically the rest of the South. Mississippi ranked the worst in the country, with the authors noting it had the second-highest death rate at 1.7 deaths per 100 million miles driven.

“Insurance rates in Mississippi are also fairly low, which raises the chance that an accident will lead to someone paying for repairs out of pocket,” the study said. “Those high, unexpected costs can really take a toll on the checking accounts of Mississippi drivers.”

Furthermore, Google Trends data indicated quite a few drivers “run afoul of the law,” with Mississippi having the 11th highest search volume for ticket offenses.

Overall, five of the worst 10 states were located in the South. These states tended to have the highest death rates and lowest auto insurance rates, the authors wrote. Florida fell to 8th this year after ranking worst last year. The state still has the lowest rate of insured drivers at just 73 percent.

Here are the states with the worst drivers:

1. Mississippi
2. Tennessee
3. California
3. Missouri
5. New Mexico
5. Texas
7. Alabama
8. Florida
9. Alaska
9. Arizona

If safety is what you’re after on your next road trip, consider the Northeast. Massachusetts has the best drivers, while Vermont, Connecticut and New York all ranked in the top five. Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island fell inside the top 10.

The prevalence of Google searches for “traffic ticket” and “speeding ticket” was included in the final analysis but the results were not published, the authors noted.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

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