What I’m going to say isn’t going to shock anyone who has lived in Glendale for more then a day. Glendale, California has some of the worst drivers in the nation. A recent article in Forbes  points out the top cities for the worst drivers in America. In fact what they said is:

3. Glendale, Calif.

Glendale residents are estimated to get into an accident once every 5.5 years.

(http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ehmk45egem/3-glendale-calif)

Now it’s easy to say to one’s self. Hey, one accident every 5.5 years isn’t bad. So that’s like a fender bender and one rear end while my kid is in Middle School and then High School. Another way to look at it is well at least we are number three! Those other people in Washington D.C. and Baltimore must be really bad drivers! In fact the truth is that in Washington D.C , Forbes reports that they average accidents 4.8 years and Baltimore is every 5.3 years. Again, that might not seem very bad until you realize that the average US driver, on average, only is involved in an accident once every 10 years!

So my big question is why? Why are we such bad drivers? I mean seriously? We are worse then Newark, New Jersey? Seriouly? When I was a young man I used to work for a rent a car company and had to drive in the Newark area on a regular basis. Let me tell you that Glendale is no Newark, nor do we ever want to be! We shouldn’t be anywhere Newark in this regard!

Don’t even get me started that we are worse drivers then Jersey City! Jersey City is where the Holland Tunnel enters and exists into and out of New York City! They only get into accidents once every 6.4 years and in 2007 they had 34,698,000 vehicles go through. How do they have a better traffic rate then Glendale?

So my question is why are we such bad drivers? Aren’t Glendale and Burbank so similar in so many ways? Don’t we share a helicopter with Pasadena and Burbank? Don’t we share an airport? I’m sure that we share a bunch of other things but we don’t seem to share our bad driving habits with them? What is Burbank’s driving record? What about Pasadena? I know that no two or three cities are never the same but come on. Why are they completely out of the top 12 and we are number 3? What are our elected officials doing about it? What is the police doing? What are we as a community doing about it? What are we as a city doing about it? What are we as drivers doing about it? What are we as citizens doing about it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this? Why do you think Glendale, California is home to so many bad drivers? Maybe even more important is the question, What can we do to improve our city so that we get off that list and start being safer?

Next week! My top ideas to make Glendale, California a safer city to drive in!