These 12 Towns In Kentucky Have The Worst Drivers In The State
By Jenn Shockley|Published September 26, 2015
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Jenn Shockley
Author
I am somewhat a cliche'. I grew up running around barefoot on a farm in Kentucky.
I love writing, art, sunshine, all animals and my incredibly patient husband, who tolerates my "crazy animal lady" side.
Kentucky has some great drivers, and some not so great drivers. I’m sure at some point we all feel like our community has the worst drivers in the state. Like myself, you might be correct, depending on where you live. This article is all about Kentucky’s worse drivers, or those who suffer an extremely high number of accident related coincidences. I decided to focus on cities containing 10,000 to 19,999 residents, with the exclusion of Louisville and Lexington, our two largest cities. The data was provided by a University of Kentucky study based on 5+ years of research collected by state police and other law enforcement offices.
Here are Kentucky’s 12 highest accident rated cities:
This is the largest city in the Bluegrass State with over 600,000 residents, double Lexington’s citizenship. The only reason it rated 2% lower than Lexington. I do not believe a day goes by that there aren’t multiple accidents in this city.
There are a variety of reasons Somerset is a wonderful place to call home, but the percentage of driver accidents are not among them. Walking is likely safer than pulling out onto the street in some areas.
Home to the Newport Aquarium, a popular tourist attraction, could be a contributing factor to the over 50% percent accident rate here. Not even the carriages are safe.
Bardstown is a beautifully historic city, so its not hard to see people becoming distracted by bits of history. It's also the home to quite a few Bourbon Distilleries and tourist attractions, but I dare not say bourbon influenced any of these 53.6%.
This was once a small town, but it has grown over the years, as has the frequency of automobile accidents. Possibly the worst accident involved a train.
This is part of the infamous wide, wide Dixie Highway, and it is a well known magnet for accidents. Some people blame the multiple lanes, other say lights often malfunction, drunk drivers, teen drivers, texting drivers, and more are to blame.
This is a thriving community with an abundance of beauty, businesses, and down home flavor. The positives outweigh the negatives here, despite the accident numbers.
Shelby County is a relatively serene place to call home with an exciting flea market and plenty of undeveloped countryside. There's a lot of wild life that roams the area, so perhaps that's why they have close to a 40% accident rate.
Glasgow is a pretty good size community that offers a lot of small town flavor. It has some interesting places, like Anne’s Greek Restaurant that actually serves Italian food. It's also home to Barren River, which offers all types of excitement. The accident ratings did not include boating incidents.
Here are the charts if your curious abut the rest of our cities, including the formula used for acquiring the data.
Formula used for data.
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Accidents in cities with under 20,000 residents.
City accident rate and population.
The total crash percentages.
If you live in one of these places and wondered why your insurance was high, now you know. If you have a great rate, you are among the fortunate, count your blessings. If your city wasn’t listed, it likely rated well, or was in a different population bracket. Not all accidents are because of a human error, some are machinery malfunctions, road hazards, and more. If you think your community has an unusually high accident range, or are proud of a low percentage of accidents, please comment.
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