The 200 Safest U.S. Cities for Drivers List Starts With Brownsville, Ends With Boston

Seven of the 10 Riskiest Driving Cities Are in the Northeast

A driver in Brownsville, Texas can go nearly 15 years between collisions. A driver in Boston averages one every 3.76 years. That roughly fourfold gap sits at the center of Allstate’s 2026 America’s Best Drivers Report, which ranks the 200 largest U.S. cities using Allstate property damage claim frequency, a measure of how often drivers cause damage to others, expressed as average years between collisions.

Brownsville holds the top spot for a second straight year, while Boston lands dead last. Between those two extremes, a city’s location turns out to be a strong signal of crash odds, and, in turn, of the higher repair costs and insurance prices that more frequent crashes can contribute to.

Now in its 18th year, the report measures safety as the average number of years between collisions in each city. Brownsville leads at 14.99 years. Boston trails at 3.76, where drivers are 189% more likely to have a collision than the national average. Across the country, the typical driver files a claim once every 10.86 years, so a Boston motorist crashes almost three times as often as the average American.

Safest and Riskiest Cities, Ranked by Years Between Crashes

Texas and Colorado dominate the top of the leaderboard. Fort Collins, Colorado (14.96 years) sits just behind Brownsville, trailed by Boise, Idaho (14.07) and Laredo, Texas (13.82). McAllen, Texas and Colorado Springs, Colorado both cracked the top 10 this year. Cary, North Carolina; Madison, Wisconsin; Eugene, Oregon; and Olathe, Kansas fill out the safest group. Put simply, drivers in the safest cities are nearly four times less likely to experience a crash than drivers at the bottom of the list.

At the other end, the Northeast dominates. Seven of the 10 riskiest cities sit in that region: Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Worcester and Springfield in Massachusetts, Providence, and Philadelphia. Glendale and Los Angeles in California, plus Sunrise Manor, Nevada, round out the bottom 10. Sunrise Manor is new to that unwelcome group this year. Crashes in these cities come far more often than the national baseline, and more frequent crashes can contribute to higher repair costs and insurance prices.

Big Movers Reshuffle the 200-City List

Rankings rarely hold still. Waco, Texas posted the largest jump of any city, climbing 40 spots. Savannah, Georgia rose 30, while New Orleans and Kansas City, Kansas each gained 29. Detroit went the other way, sliding 38 spots for the steepest drop in the report. Rockford, Illinois fell 34, followed by Arlington, Virginia (down 20), Tampa, Florida (down 19), and Anchorage, Alaska (down 18). About one in three cities moved 10 places or more, a sign of how quickly traffic patterns and driving habits can shift a city’s standing.

Regional patterns run through the results. Georgia cities improved the most, with Savannah, Macon and Columbus each climbing 20 spots or more. Several Midwest cities went the opposite direction, including Omaha (down 16), Milwaukee (down 15), Chicago (down 13) and Indianapolis (down 11).

Habits That Separate the Safest and Riskiest Cities

New data pulled from Drivewise, Allstate’s driving-feedback tool, helps explain what sits behind the raw crash numbers. Rather than rank cities, the tool tracks four behaviors and compares each city against a national average, and the geography of those habits is telling.

Speeding, measured as the share of miles driven 15 mph or more over the posted limit, runs highest in Bridgeport, Connecticut, followed by Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Chicago and three Alabama cities: Mobile, Birmingham and Huntsville. Faster driving cuts reaction time and makes crashes more severe. Hard braking, a sign of sudden, reactive driving, clusters in Arizona and North Carolina, with Raleigh, Fayetteville and Durham, along with Chandler, Glendale, Tempe, Mesa and Gilbert, among the highest. Phone use while driving runs elevated in dense metros such as Miami, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Boston. Nighttime driving, which brings reduced visibility and a higher chance of fatigue, peaks in Washington, D.C., Las Vegas and New York City.

Laura Hoffman, vice president of auto design and telematics at Allstate, framed the value of pairing the two data sets. “Where you drive plays a role in your risk, but how and when you drive matters just as much,” she said in a statement.

Small Changes That Lower Crash Risk

None of the four habits requires a major lifestyle overhaul to change, which is part of why Allstate highlights them. A driver in a bottom-10 city cannot move overnight, but slowing down, putting the phone away and leaving more room in traffic are within nearly anyone’s control.

“You don’t have to overhaul your driving habits to make a difference,” Hoffman said. “Simple steps like slowing down, staying focused and giving yourself space can go a long way in helping reduce risk.”

Geography is not fate behind the wheel, yet the 2026 rankings make a strong case that it comes close. A Brownsville commute and a Boston commute carry very different crash odds, and the repair costs and insurance prices that more frequent crashes can bring. What separates the safest cities from the riskiest is partly where drivers live and partly how they drive, and only one of those two is easy to change tomorrow morning.

Disclaimer: This report is a corporate analysis of insurance claims data, not a peer-reviewed scientific study. Rankings reflect Allstate property damage claims from January 2023 through December 2024, which represent roughly 10% of U.S. auto policies, and may not capture every driver or crash in a given city. Drivewise behavioral figures are aggregated, anonymized indices used to add context, not to rank cities. Allstate states the report is not used to set auto insurance rates. Results for Michigan cities may not be directly comparable to other states because of that state’s no-fault insurance system. Figures describe patterns across cities and do not predict any individual driver’s risk.