BOSTON (CBS) – Yet another study has been issued confirming what we already knew – that Massachusetts is one of the worst states in the country to drive in.
This latest report comes from the website Wallet Hub, which based its ratings on four categories – safety, cost, access to vehicles and maintenance, and traffic and infrastructure, and it was our dead-last ranking in that last one that won us the seventh-worst ranking overall.
READ MORE: Arrest Made After 80-Year-Old Shrewsbury Woman Injured In Hit & RunPoor road and bridge quality is part of that category, but the bulk of it measured the volume of rush-hour traffic, what it does to commute times, and the impact of crummy driving weather.
How badly did we do?
Would you believe we ranked worse than Rhode Island?
As I said, this should come as no surprise to anyone. The state is slowly trying to upgrade our infrastructure, and maybe their efforts to fix the T will get some of that traffic off the roads. The weather, we can’t do much about.
READ MORE: Lowell Mayor Calls For School Committee Member To Resign Over Anti-Semitic SlurBut we can do something about a factor the study doesn’t touch on – rudeness.
A grinding commute is only made worse by people who cut you off in a vain effort to gain ground by switching lanes, tailgaters, and other common forms of gratuitous local-driver misbehavior. And the self-serving road rage I see almost every day surely doesn’t help anyone control their blood pressure.
Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath waiting for that stuff to change.
But at least there’s one bright spot here – we were the fourth-best state in the nation when it comes to safety.
No wonder. It’s hard to get in an accident when you’re not moving.
MORE NEWS: Mass. Governor Grilled By State Lawmakers On COVID Vaccine RolloutTalk back to me via email at keller@wbztv.com, or you can reach me on Twitter, @kelleratlarge.