NJ is top 10 in U.S. for drivers, yet has highest accident rate

I’m sorry… WHAT?

New Jersey just ranked as one of the top 10 best states for drivers in America, and if you’ve ever tried merging onto the Parkway at rush hour or survived Route 22, you may be raising an eyebrow right about now.

According to a new study from Hard Rock Bet, New Jersey came in 10th best in the country for drivers, earning an overall score of 70.26 out of 100.

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And this is where it gets very New Jersey.

Because somehow, at the exact same time, we also had the highest accident rate in the country.

How can that be, you may ask?

The study found New Jersey had 31.5 accidents per 1,000 drivers, which is the highest of any state in America. So before everyone starts congratulating themselves for their amazing parallel parking skills, there’s that little detail.

But apparently, there’s an explanation.

The study took into account, speeding tickets, speed related crashes and licensing difficulty, and then we started to look good. Because only 5.52% of New Jersey drivers have gotten speeding tickets. That’s among the lowest rates in the country. Next time you’re driving down the road and you see a cop every few miles, that explains it. We also had the lowest rate of speeding incidents per 1000 drivers: 0.2. Yes zero point 2.

That’s probably because half the time traffic is so bad nobody is going fast enough to do anything reckless anyway.

The study also pointed out just how busy our roads are. New Jersey drivers travel about 78 billion miles a year, with nearly 6.9 million licensed drivers packed into one very small state.

So maybe this ranking actually makes sense. We’re not necessarily driving badly. We’re just driving… around a LOT of other people. We ARE the most densely populated state in the country?

Florida somehow ranked number one overall, Pennsylvania came in third, and New York didn’t even crack the top 20.

Which means, for once, New Jersey may actually have bragging rights.

(Even if we’re still yelling at each other in traffic..we’ll never be the lowest in the country at THAT.)

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco only.

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