Here Are the Best and Worst Cities to Drive in

Some of the cities may surprise you.

byAlejandra O'Connell-Domenech|
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According to the personal finance website, WalletHub, Raleigh, North Carolina is the most driver-friendly city. The second through fifth most driver-friendly cities in order of their rankings are: Corpus Christi, Texas, Orlando, Florida, Greensboro, North Carolina, and Plano, Texas.

WalletHub released a list of the 100 best and worst U.S. cities to drive in across the country. The website graded each metric on a 100-point scale and used the score of 100 to represent the most favorable conditions for drivers.

In order to determine the best and worst cities for drivers, WalletHub compared the nation’s 100 largest cities on 29 key metrics such as average gas prices, parking rates, maintenance costs, repair shops per capita, car theft rate, and accident likelihood.

The map below shows the distribution of best and worst cities according to their rankings by WalletHub. The cities ranked as better to drive in have been labeled with small purple circles while the least driver-friendly have been marked with large blue ones.  

Image by WalletHub

The five cities deemed least desirable for drivers were Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Oakland, California, and Detroit.

Also included in WalletHub’s report are breakdowns of best and worst cities for each metric used. For example, a section of the report lists best and worst cities based on car maintenance costs. The cities that are the lowest for vehicle maintenance costs are: Portland, Oregon, El Paso, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Florida, and Laredo, Texas. The top three cities for highest vehicle maintenance are: New York, Seattle, and Honolulu.

The cities where drivers spend the most amount of time stuck in traffic are Miami, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.

None of the cities scored a perfect 100. Although Raleigh, North Carolina was deemed the best overall with a score of 68.40. Last on the list was Detroit, which scored 35.13.

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