South Dakota Does Not Have the Best Drivers

Ask almost anyone around who they think the worst drivers are, from any group or demographic, and you will get an answer that the person properly doesn't associate themselves with.

I'm a bit of an anomaly. I will freely admit that South Dakota is not home to the best drivers. In particular, Sioux Falls is even worse. We are selfish, territorial maniacs behind the wheel in this town, or we are so nice we stop traffic to the point of causing accidents so that we can "let someone go."

As it turns out, statistically speaking, South Dakota is not great at driving. But we also are not the worst.

SmartAsset did a study of the worst drivers in the United States. They ranked all fifty states on three main factors: percentage of insured drivers, DUI arrests per 1,000 drivers, and deaths per million vehicle miles traveled. Based on that, South Dakota was tied with three other states for the 25th worst (or 25th best) driving state in the entire country.

On the bright side of these stats the vast majority of drivers, 92.3 percent are insured. On the not so bright side, we have the most DUI arrests per thousand at 9.23. And we won that statistic by quite a bit.

Of the neighboring states, Nebraska had the best drivers, coming in at 48th worst (if that makes sense, lower the rank, the better the drivers). Iowa was 36th, Minnesota was 31st, and North Dakota came in 20th worst.