Honolulu drivers
cited as less safe than
the U.S. average

Honolulu is not the most unsafe place to drive in the country, but it ranks below the national average, according to a study.

Honolulu ranked 125th out of 196 cities surveyed for the America's Best Drivers Report by Allstate Insurance Company.

The report, released yesterday, said the average driver in Honolulu is involved in a traffic accident every 8.9 years, compared with the national average of a crash every 10 years.

"Last year, of the 142 traffic fatalities statewide, 60 of them were alcohol related," state Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa said.

"Traffic studies show that 95 percent of traffic accidents are due to driver behavior such as impatience, inattention, alcohol usage and disregard for signs," Ishikawa said.

According to the report, residents of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are the safest drivers in the country. They experience an auto collision once every 15 years, which makes them 33.28 percent less likely to have an accident than the national average.

Washington, D.C., ranked last on the list, with the average driver experiencing an auto collision every 5 years, according to the study.

The report also found that drivers in U.S. cities with one-million plus populations are more likely than the national average to experience an accident.

"Many factors contribute to how cities rank in the report," said Alan Williams, the recently retired chief scientist and researcher at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

"Some factors, demographic makeup, commuting patterns and city design, cannot be changed. Others, like smart traffic engineering and strong law enforcement initiatives, can help to prevent crashes in metropolitan areas." This is the first study to gauge how likely drivers in cities with more than 100,000 people are to experience an auto collision.

Researchers analyzed Allstate's property damage claims over a two-year period (from January 2002 to December 2003) and calculated a weighted average of the two-year numbers to determine the annual percentages. The report defined an auto crash as any collision resulting in property damage. It excluded all cities in Massachusetts since the company does not offer insurance in that state.