Atlanta is Nation's 7th Most Dangerous City For Drivers

A new survey by a personal finance website lists Atlanta as the nation's 7th most dangerous city for drivers.

NerdWallet ranked the nation’s biggest cities to find a score based on five metrics: the rate of fatal crashes, the likelihood of an accident relative to other cities, the number of years between accidents, the risk of auto larceny — a break-in — and the risk of having a vehicle stolen.

It also compared the total scores based on those metrics with the auto insurance rates in each city, analyzing the average annual cost of insurance given the legal requirements for that state and the most affordable insurers among the largest companies in that market.

Here are the 5 most dangerous cities in the U.S. for drivers:

1. Detroit
Of all cities analyzed, Detroit has the second-highest fatal accident rate per 100,000 residents at 16.2. As with four of our five most dangerous cities for drivers, Detroit received ratings that fall within the “least safe” range for car break-ins and stolen cars.

2. Baton Rouge, LA
Baton Rouge recorded 38 fatal crashes in 2014. Though the number is far fewer than Detroit, which had 110 fatal accidents, Baton Rouge’s population is much smaller, which means its rate of 16.6 fatal crashes per 100,000 residents is the highest in our analysis.

3. Baltimore, MD
Baltimore has the third-highest relative accident rate in the 20 most dangerous cities when compared with the national average.

4. Springfield, MA
Springfield is the only city in our top five most dangerous places with less than 200,000 residents. The average time between accidents is 5.2 years, the fifth-shortest average time of all cities analyzed. Springfield also has the fifth-highest relative accident likelihood compared with the national average.

5. San Bernardino, CA
San Bernardino has the third highest rate of fatal accidents per 100,000 residents at 15.8.

Then six through 10:

6. New Orleans, LA
7. ATLANTA, GA
8. New Haven, CT
9. Dallas, TX
10. Worchester, MA

And now the five safest cities for drivers:

1. Cary, NC
2. Boise, ID
3. Fort Collins, CO
4. Naperville, IL
5. Santa Clarita, CA

Here are some more details about what NerdWallet used in their analysis:

1. Fatal accident rates were determined with data from the 2014 Fatality Analysis Reporting System from the NHTSA and 2014 population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. This is 30% of the score.
2. The likelihood of an accident compared with the national average (20% of the score) and the average years between accidents (20% of the score) are from the 2015 Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report.
3. Auto larceny (15% of the score) and motor vehicle theft (15% of the score) risk ratings were determined fromNeighborhoodScout’s proprietary data. We used the data to create categories of “least safe,” “less safe,” “safe” and “most safe.”
4. Average annual auto insurance rates from NerdWallet were determined by averaging car insurance quotes for eight driver profiles in each city’s ZIP codes. The profiles include: a 27-year-old single man and a single woman, and a 40-year-old married man and a married woman, each driving a Toyota Camry and Ford Escape. All profiles have a comprehensive and collision deductible of $500. To determine the average rate for each city, we found the average insurance rate for the largest carriers in the state, selected the carriers with the three cheapest averages and averaged those.