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Wisconsin drivers aren’t the worst. But they’re pretty close.

A long line of closely packed cars travels along a three-lane freeway.
Wisconsin Department of Transportation

One of the many side effects from the pandemic is that everyone seems to have forgotten how to drive. We now have unbiased proof, as a nationwide insurance comparison platform named Wisconsin as the fourth-worst driving state in the country.

A research team at QuoteWizard analyzed 2022 data from more than 10 million insurance quotes and came up with a composite ranking system based on how often a variety of incidents occurred:

  • Accidents
  • Citations
  • DUIs
  • Speeding tickets

The more often they happened, the worse a state ranked. As you already know, Wisconsin didn’t do great. After ranking 17th in 2020 and 10th in 2021, we continued our downward trend thanks largely to DUIs (fourth-most in the country) and speeding tickets (fifth-most). It also turned out that the state’s biggest city was its biggest problem.

“We found that Milwaukee is the worst driving city in Wisconsin,” Nick VinZant, a senior research analyst at QuoteWizard, told TMJ4. “There is a speeding and a citation problem, and citations can be anything from dangerous driving, texting while driving, reckless endangerment — a wide variety of things. Milwaukee ranks very highly.”

The city has taken steps in the last few years to try and change that, including the S.T.A.N.D. for Safer Streets plan, reckless driving mini-grants and various safety initiatives. We’ll see if they can get Milwaukee — and the state as a whole — out of the top five next year.