These 20 Cities are Home to the Fastest Drivers

It’s common knowledge that many drivers are liberal with speed limits once they hit the road.

Whether it’s to get to work on time or simply show off your engine’s horsepower, speeding is a common practice among many drivers. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding is also a contributing factor to over one-fourth of fatal car accidents.

A recent AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety report found that over half of drivers admitted to having driven 15 miles per hour over the speed limit on a freeway—while nearly 18.8 percent reported they did it “fairly often to regularly.” Unsurprisingly, tens of millions of drivers every year face speeding tickets for breaking the rules of the road. Between potential license suspensions, fines, and auto insurance rate hikes, the risks of speeding seem to outweigh the benefits.

But some cities across the country haven’t received the message, and their residents have paid the price in the form of a surplus of speeding tickets. To identify the cities with the highest percentage of drivers receiving a speeding ticket, Insurify data scientists analyzed over one million automobile insurance applications from across the country. The following cities have the highest prevalence of speeding violations.

Methodology

Insurify provides car insurance quotes based on customers’ answers to questions about driving history, vehicle type, and other personal data. The rankings in this article are based on a set of 1.4 million car insurance shopper applications. Each shopper was asked whether any drivers on their policy application had been ticketed for speeding in the last seven years, allowing Insurify to calculate the percent of shoppers in each city with a history of speeding violations. After determining the city in each U.S. state with the highest percentage of drivers with a ticket, we ranked the top twenty offenders. Information on city population was gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau, and statistics on speeding-related fatalities in each state were supplied by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2016 Traffic Safety Facts data.

20. Lincoln, Nebraska

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 15.87%
City population: 284,736
Speeding-related fatalities in Nebraska (2016): 36

19. Jacksonville, North Carolina

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 15.88%
City population: 72,447
Speeding-related fatalities in North Carolina (2016): 566

18. Johnson City, Tennessee

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 16.18%
City population: 66,391
Speeding-related fatalities in Tennessee (2016): 183

17. Grovetown, Georgia

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 16.90%
City population: 14,109
Speeding-related fatalities in Georgia (2016): 266

16. Lawrence, Kansas

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 17.33%
City population: 96,892
Speeding-related fatalities in Kansas (2016): 106

15. Lee’s Summit, Missouri

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 17.42%
City population: 97,290
Speeding-related fatalities in Missouri (2016): 328

14. Wetumpka, Alabama

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 17.51%
City population: 8,148
Speeding-related fatalities in Alabama (2016): 317

13. Parker, Colorado

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 17.60%
City population: 54,202
Speeding-related fatalities in Colorado (2016): 211

12. Des Moines, Iowa

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 18.10%
City population: 217,521
Speeding-related fatalities in Iowa (2016): 95

11. Canton, Ohio

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 18.11%
City population: 70,909
Speeding-related fatalities in Ohio (2016): 257

10. Portsmouth, Virginia

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 18.45%
City population: 94,572
Speeding-related fatalities in Virginia (2016): 257

9. Meridian, Idaho

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 18.45%
City population: 99,926
Speeding-related fatalities in Idaho (2016): 54

8. West Jordan, Utah

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 18.92%
City population: 113,905
Speeding-related fatalities in Utah (2016): 72

7. Roswell, New Mexico

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 19.05%
City population: 47,775
Speeding-related fatalities in New Mexico (2016): 145

6. Gillette, Wyoming

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 19.90%
City population: 30,560
Speeding-related fatalities in Wyoming (2016): 25

5. Kennewick, Washington

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 20.19%
City population: 81,607
Speeding-related fatalities in Washington (2016): 154

4. Kenosha, Wisconsin

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 20.36%
City population: 99,877
Speeding-related fatalities in Wisconsin (2016): 212

3. Seaford, Delaware

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 20.59%
City population: 7,750
Speeding-related fatalities in Delaware (2016): 39

2. Greenwood, Indiana

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 21.94%
City population: 57,375
Speeding-related fatalities in Indiana (2016): 213

1. Clinton, South Carolina

Percent of drivers with a speeding ticket: 23.64%
City population: 8,503
Speeding-related fatalities in South Carolina (2016): 381

Insurify Insights

Insurify’s team of data scientists and content specialists presents Insurify Insights, a series of automotive, home, and health studies focusing on the topics that impact us all. Through expert analysis of over 2.5 million car insurance applications and an array of top data sources, the Insurify Insights team produces new data-driven articles, trend analyses, regional superlatives, and national rankings every week. See Insurify Insights as featured in Forbes, Fox News, USA Today, NPR, and more.