To the surprise of absolutely no one who lives in Southern California, Los Angeles ranks as one of the worst cities in the nation to drive in. Two other cities in California also made the list, including San Francisco and Oakland. San Francisco was ranked as the second-worst city to drive in behind Detroit.
WalletHub determined the worst cities to drive in by looking at the 100 largest cities across 29 key indicators of driver-friendliness. The company looked at average gas prices, how long commuters spent in traffic, and even the amount of auto-repair shops per-capita.
The worst part of driving is getting stuck in traffic and L.A. is no slouch in that department. WalletHub says Angelenos spend the most amount of time in congestion.
Data collected by WalletHub showed that Los Angeles has some of the highest likelihood commuters might get into an accident in the city when compared to the national average. L.A. finished third, with Washington D.C. and Baltimore tied for second, and Boston coming in at number one.
Drivers in Los Angeles also paid some of the highest gas rates in the nation according to the data. If you're looking for an auto-repair shop in Irvine, hopefully your car is still running. The Orange County city is 99 out of 100 for fewest auto-repair shops per capita in the United States.
Fortunately, experts say relief may be on the way for commuters thanks to the rise of self-driving and automated vehicles. Eyal Amir a professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign says he believes there will be more self-driving cars than human-driven ones within the next ten to twenty years.
"Autonomous vehicles would be a net benefit to society, just as adding roads enables faster and easier driving. However, just as adding roads does not eliminate or significantly alleviate traffic-jam problems (more roads means fewer jams, which encourages more people to drive or use shared cars, which creates more jams), autonomous cars would bring their own issues, such as more cars on the road and more traffic jams as a result," said Amir.
Of course, Amir points out, people may not mind the extra time in traffic if they can work, or watch TV while driving.
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