At least, that’s the conclusion you’ll reach if you mash together one company’s data about accidents, speeding tickets, DUIs and citations this year, put the result into a spreadsheet program and order it by states. New Hampshire comes out on top.

This was done as a publicity stunt (a successful one, judging from this article) by QuoteWizard, a company that compares insurance rates. (I get at least one pitch a week from places that put together bits of data about whatever-you-want and then rank cities or states, producing a breathless press release about the results and please link back to our company website.)

QuoteWizard says it “analyzed 2021 data from millions of insurance quotes from drivers in each state” out of its database, then “used a composite ranking system to rank each city for their rate of incidents.” Yes, the website FAQ says “city” even though it is ranking states, which may indicate something about their level of detail. 

The company ranked Maine drivers as 18th best among states, Vermont in the middle and Massachusetts, you won’t be surprised to hear, near the bottom.

By the way, I personally am a superb driver.