Considering Chattanooga's plentiful hills, curvy streets and sometimes unpredictable weather, it is remarkable and encouraging that Allstate Insurance Co. has again ranked our city as having some of the safest drivers in America.
Specifically, Allstate determined that a driver in Chattanooga is more than 16 percent less likely to have a collision than drivers elsewhere across the United States. An average local driver goes about 12 years between auto accidents.
When Allstate tallied up the figures, it found that Chattanooga's drivers ranked the 10th safest among the largest 200 cities in America. Others in the top 10 were, in descending order, Fort Collins, Colo.; Boise, Idaho; Lincoln, Neb.; Chandler, Ariz.; Huntsville, Ala.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Springfield, Mo.; Reno, Nev.; and Eugene, Ore.
The only slight negative is that Chattanooga's No. 10 ranking is down a bit from last year's No. 2 ranking. Still, No. 10 isn't at all bad out of 200 cities. Not too surprisingly, the cities that fared worst for collisions tended to be large and to have a great deal of traffic congestion. They included New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
The relatively few auto accidents in our area translate into benefits such as lower insurance rates and, of course, fewer deaths and injuries and less property damage.
Those are benefits that are clearly worth protecting, and we could all do ourselves a favor by resolving to drive safely and to obey the rules of the road.