Motorists around the country were involved in approximately 6,452,000 traffic accidents in 2017 according to statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Auto insurance companies study data from NHTSA and other agencies when assessing risks in New Jersey and other parts of the country, and they sometimes release their findings to the public.
The Illinois-based Allstate Corporation releases such a report every year. The company’s America’s Safe Drivers Report ranks the nation’s largest 200 metropolitan areas based on the number of motor vehicle accidents reported adjusted for population size, and Brownsville, Texas, emerged as the home of the country’s safest drivers in 2019. The average Brownsville resident drives for about 15 years before getting into an accident, but that figure drops to just 4.19 years in Baltimore, which is the nation’s leading accident hot spot according to Allstate.
The residents of densely populated Northeast states are served by aging infrastructure and often drive to and from work in atrocious weather, so it is not surprising that many of the region’s cities appear close to the bottom of the Allstate list. However, 15 of the nation’s most dangerous metropolitan areas for driving are located in balmy California. New Jersey has two cities on the list. Patterson is ranked 143rd in the country and Newark occupies the 147th spot. Drivers in both cities are involved in an accident every eight years or so.
The vast majority of motor vehicle accidents involve human error of some sort, but police reports do not always make clear who was to blame. In these situations, experienced personal injury attorneys may visit accident sites to gather evidence that police investigators may have missed.
