The 15 Worst Cities In Washington For Distracted Driving: Study

EDMONDS, WA - Is Edmonds really #1 in Washington for highest rate of distracted drivers? Lending Tree's QuoteWizard blog site ranked the city as tops based on distracted driving crash data from 2017 that it gathered from Washington State Department of Transportation then paired with census population data from the same year.

According to MyEdmondsNews.com, however, Edmonds police believe their numbers are listed so much higher than other nearby law enforcement agencies because of the way Edmonds police specifically investigate and report crashes and distracted driving.

"Driver distractions is one area our officers specifically look at when investigating collisions," Edmonds Police Sgt. Shane Hawley told MyEdmondsNews.com. "We make sure, during the report approval process, that the appropriate driver distraction codes are checked (including distractions). This is an area we focus on, but it is important to note that the distracted driving codes in that section may not be a focus of all law enforcement agencies. We believe the numbers are so much higher because we specifically focus on distracted driving as part of our standard collision investigation process."

Regardless of the methodology for reporting the data, QuoteWizard found that of the 11,504 crashes officially caused by distracted driving in 2017, just more than 2 percent, or 276, occurred in Edmonds. Based on the city's reported population of 42,000-plus residents, that makes Edmonds number one.

From QuoteWizard's report:

Located 15 miles north of Seattle, Edmonds is home to over 42,000 people. It's also home to the highest rate of distracted driving crashes in all of Washington, according to population and incident rates.
In 2017, there were 276 distracted driving accidents in Edmonds. Luckily, none of those accidents resulted in fatalities. The frequency of distracted driving accidents is nearly double that of SeaTac, the next city on the list, and almost triple that of neighboring Lynnwood.

Overall, QuoteWizard ranked Washington as the 10th-worst state for distracted driving in the nation. The top 15 Washington cities were ranked as follows:

1. Edmonds
2. SeaTac
3. Tacoma
4. Lakewood
5. Everett
6. Lynnwood
7. Mountlake Terrace
8. Bellevue
9. Bothell
10. Seattle
11. Mount Vernon
12. Tumwater
13. Longview
14. Moses Lake
15. Bremerton