Are Southern drivers more aggressive than most Americans when they get behind the wheel of their car during the holidays?
A new study of driving habits for motorists over the Thanksgiving holiday suggests they are and Chattanooga is in the midst of those more aggressive drivers.
Among the top 50 U.S. cities where GasBuddy.com analyzed the frequency of speeding, rapid acceleration and excessive braking, the top cities in the country, in order, were Atlanta, Nashville and Birmingham, Alabama. (Chattanooga was not big enough city to be included in the data collected from Nov 27 to Dec. 1, 2019).
Cities with the 'scroogiest' holiday drivers
1. Atlanta 2. Nashville 3. Birmingham, Ala. 4. Sacramento, Calif. 5. San Francisco 6. Los Angeles 7. San Diego 8. Orlando. Fla. 9. Raleigh, N.C. 10. Hartford, Conn. Methodology: GasBuddy examined millions of Drives in the U.S. during the Thanksgiving holiday week defined as Nov. 27 - Dec. 1, 2019, noting the frequency of aggressive events while driving: rapid acceleration, hard braking and speeding.
GasBuddy.com, which offers a smart phone app to help motorists find cheaper gas prices, reviewed data on driving patterns over the Thanksgiving holiday this year and over holiday periods in previous years.
Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. said consumers driving in certain cities across the United States are nearly 20% more aggressive than the average driver during the holidays, reducing fuel mileage as much as 40% and wasting money on gas.
GasBuddy has ranked the cities with the most aggressive drivers / Illustration provided by GasBuddyThe study found that drivers were most aggressive on Thanksgiving during the most recent holiday weekend, DeHaan said.
"Peace and good-will towards other drivers will go a long way this holiday season, " DeHaan said in a report released today. "Not only is road rage dangerous, it guzzles any extra holiday savings by reducing fuel efficiency, which makes driving like a Scrooge wasteful and expensive."