Keller @ Large: How To Improve Driving In Massachusetts

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.

Poor 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.

But 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.

Talk back to me via email at keller@wbztv.com, or you can reach me on Twitter, @kelleratlarge.