Think NJ has well-behaved drivers? Study claims it’s true

You’re just trying to get to work. A guy coming out of a side street on the main road you’re on looks right at you, even makes eye contact, then cuts you off, causing you to slam your brakes to avoid a collision. Five minutes later on a highway, a woman does the infamous ‘Jersey Slide’ right past the front of your car within inches. Later, at a red light, you almost get rear-ended by someone who looks up from their text message just in time.

We all know this can be the reality on many days in New Jersey. We live it. Yet now a study just came out that feels like it should have been done by Gaslighters of America. Instead, it was by the law firm Osborne & Francis.

They analyzed driving habits in U.S. states based on six different categories.

Percentage of crashes involving speeding, percentage of drivers wearing seatbelts, distracted drivers in fatal crashes per 100k, DUI arrests per 100k, alcohol related fatalities per 100k, and percentage driving with no insurance.

You might scream and argue to no one when you read this, but, this study finds New Jersey is second best in the nation. This study says the only state with better drivers than us based on these criteria is Minnesota. This study feels very, very wrong, doesn’t it?

The data from these six categories went into assigning an overall score, and ours was 17.49, putting us in 49th place, meaning 2nd place for being good and avoiding dangerous driving behaviors.

Who had a score of 63.38 to make them the number one worst drivers in America? That honor goes to New Mexico. Nearly one in four drivers carry no insurance, they had the second highest rate of alcohol-related fatalities, and they were the only state whose distracted driving fatality rate was in the double digits at 10.29 per 100k.

When we’re getting a course in survival every time we drive home from work, it's hard to believe that it’s worse almost everywhere else. But that’s what the study says. I’ll leave it up to you whether you trust it.

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

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