A recent report from Verizon Connect ranked Nebraska fleet drivers third in the country for safest drivers.
The report comes from a study which gathered and analyzed statistics from Verizon Connect. The data was measured from 6,215 Verizon Connect data of small and medium business customers from October 2015 to September 2017.
The top 3 states with the fewest speeding events were Vermont, Connecticut and Virginia—who still failed to crack the top 10—while the states with the most speeding events were South Dakota, Montana and North Dakota. These findings were interesting, as North Dakota and South Dakota occurred the most speeding events, yet landed in the top 10 for safest fleet drivers. Meanwhile, Montana ranked in the top 3 for speeding events but still managed to rank as the most dangerous state for fleet drivers. Below is a more complete list of Verizon’s findings.
States with the safest fleet drivers:
- North Dakota
- Maine
- Nebraska
- Vermont
- Wyoming
- South Dakota
- Idaho
- Wisconsin
- Rhode Island
- Michigan
States with the most dangerous fleet drivers:
- Utah
- Georgia
- California
- Alabama
- Texas
- Arizona
- Mississippi
- Tennessee
- Montana
- New York
Verizon then added fatality data to the mix in order to analyze the safest and most dangerous states for fleet drivers to drive in:
Safest states to drive in:
- Rhode Island
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Vermont
- New York
- New Jersey
- Maryland
- New Hampshire
- Washington
- Virginia
Most Dangerous States to drive in
- Montant
- Wyoming
- South Dakota
- Kentucky
- Mississippi
- North Dakota
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Texas
- Oklahoma
The Verizon report only analyzed drivers with a Verizon Connect telematics system. Researchers analyzed safety factors such as harsh acceleration, harsh braking, hard turns (cornering) and excessive speedings and then correlated its own data with reports of fatalities per vehicle miles traveled, average speeding events per day and average speeding events per mile. These statistics allowed analysts to put together a formula and categorize states based on safest states for fleet drivers to drive in and states with the safest fleet drivers.
This study only analyzed fleet drivers, but other drivers can also cause damage. A car accident can back up traffic for miles. Plus, fleet drivers do not drive their truck everywhere. Here’s a list of the worst drivers when all drivers in each state were considered, based on 2016 data.
States with the worst drivers:
- Florida
- Mississippi
- Louisiana
- Tennessee
- Oklahoma
- Texas
- Nevada
- California
- Alabama
- Georgia
States with the safest drivers
- Massachusetts
- Vermont
- New Hampshire
- Maine
- Utah
- Connecticut
- Rhode Island
- Iowa
- Nebraska
- Delaware
It’s hard to avoid a state, but knowing which state truck drivers should pay a little more attention, helps the drive as well. As summer approaches, pay attention to additional traffic and construction to make your driver as safe as possible.