Safest Cities Awards (2018)

A city is only as safe as its drivers.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that motor vehicle fatalities in the U.S. have declined over the past decade. But educational initiatives, public policy changes, and improved roads can only do so much to protect our communities. Drunk driving, for instance, remains an issue across the country; in fact, someone dies from a drunk driving accident every 50 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As long as the numbers of vehicles and licensed drivers rise with the nation’s population, more and more citizens will need to educate themselves on the rules of the road.

Being home to careful drivers is a major boon to any community, and some cities certainly have better driving records than others. Interested in finding out which American cities are home to the safest drivers, the data scientists at Insurify, a website to compare auto insurance quotes, set out to identify the safest driving communities in each state. According to our data, these communities —be they state capitals or humble towns—are prime examples of how safe driving can make a city thrive.

Selection Process for Insurify’s 2018 Safest Cities Award

To determine the safest driving community in each U.S. state, Insurify analyzed over 1.5 million completed auto insurance applications in which individuals were asked about their city of residence and driving record. Each individual was asked whether any drivers on their policy application had been cited for a driving incident where they were at fault in the past seven years. At-fault incidents include accidents, DUIs, failures to stop, speeding, reckless driving, passing violations, and other causes for citation. Using this information, the data scientists at Insurify were able to calculate the percent of drivers in each city with a history of at-fault driving incidents. The cities with the lowest prevalence of driving incidents were then selected for all U.S. states where enough data was available.

Congratulations to the following communities, who have been deemed the safest in the nation thanks to its careful and clean-record drivers!

Winners of Insurify’s 2018 Safest Cities Awards

Alabama: Brewton
Alaska: Anchorage
Arizona: Kingman
Arkansas: Malvern
California: Huntington Park
Colorado: Pueblo
Connecticut: New Britain
Delaware: New Castle
Florida: Edgewater
Georgia: Trenton
Idaho: Coeur d’Alene
Illinois: Joliet
Indiana: Hammond
Iowa: Cedar Rapids
Kansas: Wichita
Kentucky: Hazard
Louisiana: Slidell
Maryland: Capitol Heights
Massachusetts: Malden
Michigan: Port Huron
Minnesota: Duluth
Mississippi: Gulfport
Missouri: St. Ann
Montana: Butte
Nebraska: Grand Island
Nevada: Pahrump
New Hampshire: Nashua
New Jersey: North Bergen
New Mexico: Las Cruces
New York: Bronx
North Carolina: Morrisville
North Dakota: Fargo
Ohio: Lorain
Oklahoma: Muskogee
Oregon: Klamath Falls
Pennsylvania: Scranton
Rhode Island: Providence
South Carolina: Liberty
South Dakota: Sioux Falls
Tennessee: Crossville
Texas: Cedar Hill
Utah: Cedar City
Virginia: Fairfax
Washington: Bellevue
West Virginia: Parkersburg
Wisconsin: Waukesha
Wyoming: Gillette