(WAVY/NEXSTAR) — How angry is your state behind the wheel?
A new Forbes Advisor study found road rage incidences are on the rise — and some states have higher shares of confrontational drivers than others. Forbes Advisor surveyed 10,000 licensed drivers and compared all 50 states across nine metrics. States were then ranked out of 100.
Overall, Arizona ranked no. 1 for the worst road rage, while Delaware was home to the most polite drivers in the U.S. Arizona received a full 100 score, the only state to do so.
See the top 10 most confrontational drivers by state below.
As Forbes explains, five of the top 10 most confrontational-driver states are in the south, while many of the most polite are located in the Pacific and Western U.S.
See an interactive map of states ranked by how confrontational their drivers are below.
Kansas ranks no. 28, having received a score of 41.54 out of 100. The interactive map states that 11% of drivers said that another driver has exited their vehicle to yell at or fight with them, while 10% of drivers experience road rage very frequently in their home state.
The top reasons for road rage, according to Forbes Advisor, are:
- Heavy traffic (39.35%)
- Already feeling stressed (38.06%)
- Running late (33.89%)
- Already feeling angry (32.49%)
- Feeling tired (26.86%)
Places where drivers experience the most road rage are freeways or highways (26.59%), parking lots (14.9%), intersections (12.36%) and rural roads (6.99%).
In 2022, 413 people were injured in road rage shootings — a 135% increase from 2018, according to a 2023 report by Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group. The report explains that in 2022 someone in the U.S. was shot (injured or killed) in a road rage incident about every 16 hours.
