MWN- Automotive edition

So yesterday I found an article from our old friends at WalletHub about "The best and worst cities to drive in".  I'm gonna save the worst one for dramatic effect (Although I'm sure some of you have seen it already- I got it off FoxNews, for Pete's sake), but I found out my ol' home town did pretty good for itself.


They go into their usual explanation of their arcane methodology:

In order to determine the best and worst cities for drivers, WalletHub compared a sample of the 100 most populated U.S. cities across four key dimensions: 1) Cost of Ownership & Maintenance, 2) Traffic & Infrastructure, 3) Safety and 4) Access to Vehicles & Maintenance. Our sample considers only the city proper in each case and excludes cities in the surrounding metro area.

We evaluated those dimensions using 30 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for drivers. Data for metrics marked with an asterisk (*) were available at the state level BLAH BLAH BLAH you get the point.  So anyway, let's look at each "dimension" as they call it and see what amusement we can draw.


1- Cost of ownership and maintenance

Here they gave "full weight" to new cost, average insurance premium, maintenance costs, Total extra operating costs ("result of driving on roads in need of repair, lost time and fuel due to congestion-related delays, and the costs of traffic crashes in which roadway features likely were a contributing factor", in other words, like WASHINGTON CENTER ROAD in front of my house), and average parking rate, but DOUBLE weight to gas prices.  So how'd we do?

Well, North Carolina took four of the top ten best cities (and I'll bet you didn't even know they had that many cities in the nation's 100 most populous!), with Raleigh at the top.  (I thought with all the tobacco companies there I might be able to pull off a 'yeah but they make up for it in lung cancer' pun, but Kentucky's got them beat all hollow.)  Florida grabbed three more (not to mention #11), and there were only four cities in the top 20 north of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Two of them were in Nebraska- the other two were Fort Wayne (How the he  tied for 19th) and Toledo (16th).  One the other end of the stick, California grabbed seven of the bottom ten, with San Diego at the barrel liner.  NYC, Philly (And how I do wish Bobby were still here to laugh with me at that) and Honolulu also snuck in, but they're all "honorary Californias" anyway.


2- Traffic and Infrastructure

This had a plethora of categories involving weather conditions, congestion, and road quality, all of which got "full weight", except curiously enough, bridge quality- it only got a quarter weight.  So if you drive onto a bridge that then collapses, blame WalletHub.  Our winners here?  An interesting mix of areas, unlike the last category.  Birmingham, AL, took the prize, with a couple each from Texas, Nevada, and Arizona- and Irvine CA managed to sneak in.


The worst?  This reads like a list of "Cities Hilary won".  New York City at the bottom, followed by Chicago, Jersey City, Newark, Philadelphia, DC, Detroit, Anchorage, Boston, and Seattle, with San Francisco at #11.  I simply can't make this stuff up.

Fort Wayne?  Just into the bottom 50 at #51.

3- Safety

I find it again curious that the sections "severity of DUI punishment", "Punitiveness of high-risk insurance", and "driving laws" got half-weight, while "number of hard breaking events per 1,000 miles" as figured by drivers doing the Allstate Drivewise thing in 2015-16 gets full weight, but whatever.  The good guys?  Irvine and Chula Vista take the top two, and San Diego grabs #9, totally screwing up that #100 they got two categories ago.  On the other side, let me mention that larceny and theft were among the "full weight" items here, which explains Detroit at the bottom, St Louis, Miami, and Baltimore in the top ten, and Cleveland at #11. (For those of you not in the know, St Louis was found to be the #1 most dangerous city in the US, with Detroit #2, Baltimore #3, and Cleveland #9.)   Fort Wayne?  Again, just under the halfway point at #56, but we beat Indy by 22 places!


4- Access the vehicles and maintenance

This category fits in per capita car dealerships, car washes, repair shops, gas stations, and parking.  All of these were marked with a double-asterisk, which means...

 For metrics marked with two asterisks (**), the square root of the population was used to calculate the population size in order to avoid overcompensating for minor differences across cities.

Anyway, assuming these numbers mean anything at all, Miami, Houston, and NYC top the list, which isn't surprising.  Las Vegas was #5, which makes sense too, if you consider the connection between car dealerships and gambling.


On the bad side, a pretty jumbled list, and apparently Arizona and California might not be the best places to get a car.  But when you consider this is supposed to be the difficulty factor in even getting a car, makes perfect sense that Anchorage, AK is the biggest loser on this category.  Somehow, Fort Wayne bones its way to an 80th place, which seems odd considering the square acreage in car dealerships we have here.  Maybe if we gave all the closed K-marts to some little mom-and-pop car dealer outfits, we could pump that up...

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They did put some of the "sub-dimensions" up for us, and the first one has Ft Wayne tied for first in lowest hours spent in congestion.  Good thing they measured THAT one before the Washington Center project!  Boston was worst there.  No wonder the Red Sox fired GM Dave Dombrowski.  Obviously all his fault.

Not surprisingly, three from Nevada and three from California won fewest days with precipitation.  What did surprise me on the most precipitation list was that not only did Buffalo beat Seattle, but Cleveland tied 'em.

The lowest likelihood of getting in an accident was Boise, ID.  (Assuming they didn't count Saturdays after Boise State football games.)  The most likely to get into an accident was a 4-way tie between LA, Washington, Boston, and Baltimore.  Nice job, guys!

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But I've dallied enough.  The top ten best cities car wise are:


Raleigh
Orlando
Lincoln NE
Tampa
Winston-Salem
Birmingham
Corpus Christie
Boise
Charlotte
and Greensboro, giving the Carolinas the lions share of the best.


However the worst...

91- Honolulu
92- NYC
93- Los Angeles
94- Seattle
95- Washington
96- Newark
97- San Fran (that's that extra expense for getting fecal remains off tires and doors, I reckon)
98- Philadelphia
99- Oakland (see comment on #97)



And the worst city for driving a car in?  C'mon, I know you guessed it....

That's right, the Motor City, who ranked 45th in access to vehicles (Apparently counting in 'break-ins per capita'), but 81st in cost of ownership, 94th in traffic and infrastructure, and of course that big last place in safety.