Louisville traffic accident rate (Lexington, Frankfort: car insurance, how much, home)

[jessemh431]

I'm seriously asking and not trying to be some negative Nancy about Louisville. Does anyone else feel like you see WAAAYYYYY more accidents here than anywhere else? I drive from St Matts to UofL every day. It's about 12 miles. I sometimes see 2-3 accidents, often consisting of 3+ cars, each way. I'm sometimes shocked when I DON'T see an accident for a whole day on the 264.

In LA, I drove 18 miles to work, and rarely saw an accident. They happened, but not nearly as often.

In Philly, I drove 33 miles each way every day this summer and can only remember 1 accident.

In my first few months here, I was almost smashed into the center divider on the 65 a few times by tractor trucks.

I noticed people like to drive in 2 lanes at the same time and won't move over for you.

I think my favorite, though, is when people make right hand turns, they swing the car out to the left into the other lane first, before turning the corner. Real safe

Not saying LA and Philly and other cities have amazing drivers, and this is not me trying to make Louisville seem bad, but I don't recall having so many close misses or seeing so many accidents.

[censusdata]

I'd rate Louisville as worse than average for aggressive / careless drivers. I've been a few other places that were similar, the worst place I've ever been is Chicago. Best drivers I've seen were Lexington, Pensacola FL, and Wisconsin. New Albany drivers are worse than Louisville, I seriously think 30% of drivers are on a drug high or withdrawal. I've never been anywhere where so many people smoke in their cars. There are also a lot of really old vehicles over here that have trouble accelerating and pollute a lot.

[GraniteStater]

It ranks near the worst of any area I've lived in without a doubt. Combining the many overly aggressive and slow drivers to go along with inadequate and antiquated infrastructure, cloverleaf highway design, roads that often completely lack shoulders, and 1950s era traffic control (stoplights)- you are asking for general misery even doing the most BASIC things when it comes to driving. Can you tell I didn't have a good driving experience yesterday? This was in southern Indiana by the way (New Albany, Clarksville, Jeffersonville).

[jessemh431]

I'm not used to people sitting in the left lane going under the speed limit, going along with your mention of slow drivers. I wouldn't say I'm a speed demon, but I go faster than normal. But yesterday on the 64 home from Frankfort to Louisville, there was a truck going 50 in the left lane through the 70MPH limit zone. There were actually tractor trailers changing lanes to pass him on the right. I watched at least 10 cars and 2 trucks illegally pass on the right. Obviously I did too. But I can't stand when people think it's their right to be in any lane that they choose, because you're FORCING people to drive illegally.

Even if we had a speed minimum, there are never any cops on that stretch of roadway to do anything about it. I just wish people would be smarter about the way they drive.

I don't understand how Louisville always ranks so highly for best drivers in the US though. Every time I read those rankings and see Louisville up so high, I immediately disregard the entire study. They'll have LA, Philly, Chicago, Boston, SF, and NYC near the top along with Baltimore and DC. I've driven in LA, Philly, Chicago, Boston, SF, and NYC, though, not Baltimore and DC, so can't comment on them. But even though people drive fast, it's a great mix of aggressive and defensive driving with barely any accidents. The 95 between Philly and Trenton is filled with construction where it is 3 lanes in each direction, lanes are extremely narrow, and divider walls on both sides with several changes in road height causing cars to move side to side involuntarily. Speed limit was 40, most people did 70-90. Going 55 in the right lane would get you tailgaed. Nobody ever got in accidents except one time a big rig flipped over. I just always thought to myself that if it was Louisville, the whole city would have died on that freeway one by one daily.

Surprising to hear you think Lex drivers are good. I just always assumed maybe it was something to do with the difficulty of the driving test here, or a cultural thing with Kentucky being a more rural state as a whole.

[ServoMiff]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

It ranks near the worst of any area I've lived in without a doubt. Combining the many overly aggressive and slow drivers to go along with inadequate and antiquated infrastructure, cloverleaf highway design, roads that often completely lack shoulders, and 1950s era traffic control (stoplights)- you are asking for general misery even doing the most BASIC things when it comes to driving. Can you tell I didn't have a good driving experience yesterday? This was in southern Indiana by the way (New Albany, Clarksville, Jeffersonville).

My car insurance DOUBLED when moving to Louisville from downtown San Francisco. Crazy. Everything you said is 100% accurate. The cloverleafs PLUS fewer freeway lanes are the biggest issue. Are they actually going to fix those things once they get the bridge and spaghetti junction projects done, or is it more of the same?

[jessemh431]

I really hope Louisville DOESN'T fix its highway system and instead starts investing more in public transit. Wishful thinking, though, ey?

[ServoMiff]

Originally Posted by jessemh431

I really hope Louisville DOESN'T fix its highway system and instead starts investing more in public transit. Wishful thinking, though, ey?

They SHOULD do both. Decent public transit will never be an option in a state as red as KY. We don't even have AMTRAK for cryin out loud.

[jessemh431]

Originally Posted by ServoMiff

They SHOULD do both. Decent public transit will never be an option in a state as red as KY. We don't even have AMTRAK for cryin out loud.

True. That's embarrassing. But I wish we could take a pause on highway funding to fund public transit heavily for a bit. Then hopefully we can put resources back into both. But our efforts need to be heavily focused on public transit. Then maybe some of these people who don't know how to drive would take public transit more

[eok]

The problem with public transit is that it has to be subsidized. People aren't willing to pay enough fare to make it profitable. But people in Kentucky don't want to subsidize anything.

A bus ride in Louisville already costs $1.75, and that isn't enough for them to come out ahead without subsidies.

A long time ago I rode a ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island for 25 cents. I wonder how much subsidy that got, and what the fare is now.

The key issue is whether the people can be convinced a public transportation system is worth paying for out of taxes instead of fares. In theory the only reason any fare at all should be charged is to keep the bums off who just want to use it as a place to sleep or get out of the weather.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by eok

The problem with public transit is that it has to be subsidized. People aren't willing to pay enough fare to make it profitable. But people in Kentucky don't want to subsidize anything.

A bus ride in Louisville already costs $1.75, and that isn't enough for them to come out ahead without subsidies.

A long time ago I rode a ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island for 25 cents. I wonder how much subsidy that got, and what the fare is now.

The key issue is whether the people can be convinced a public transportation system is worth paying for out of taxes instead of fares. In theory the only reason any fare at all should be charged is to keep the bums off who just want to use it as a place to sleep or get out of the weather.

Public highways are also subsidized, but fewer complain about inherent overall costs of maintaining all the infrastructure in addition to disliking toll roads- although it would be really nice to have an independent entity monitoring how the toll revenues get spent.