Here’s one from the file marked, “You Already Knew This, but Now You Have a Study to Prove It.”

According to the seventh annual Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report, San Francisco has the second worst drivers in California. Los Angeles, the home of non-stop traffic and crazy freeway interchanges, ranked safer than us! The Allstate report ranked the 200 largest cities in the United States in terms of frequency of car collisions to determine which cities have the safest drivers. For the second year in a row, Fort Collins, CO took top honors as America’s Safest Driving City. Drivers in Fort Collins are 28.6 percent less likely to be in a car accident than the national average.

San Francisco Drivers Are Improving

San Francisco drivers are 57.3% more likely to be in an accident than the national average and have accidents about once every 6 years – placing us #185 for safe drivers. Yet, according to the most recent SFMTA data, in 2009 there were 2,877 reported non-fatal collisions in San Francisco, the lowest number in the past 10 years. So maybe there is hope that we won’t stay the second worst for long. You can read SFTMA’s full report on traffic accidents in San Francisco here. If you want to avoid a collision in San Francisco, you’d be wise to stay away from the highest collision intersection – Market and Octavia.

San Francisco Streets Could be Safer By Design

In the past two decades, San Francisco has made progress in reducing the number of collisions. In 1990 San Francisco had 5,804 collisions and 64 fatal collisions. In 2009 those totals had declined to 2,877 collisions and 30 fatal collisions. But certainly more can be done to help make sure our streets are not dangerous by design. By analyzing which intersections are most apt for accidents, we can use this data to invest in better signals, bike lanes, crossing guards and signs to make San Francisco streets safer.

What do you think about our safe driving rating? Does this encourage you to take Muni more often?