Texas 3rd "scariest" state in the U.S. says one real estate blog! (Houston: 2014, low crime)

[Jack Lance]

Spiders and prisons and bears! Oh, my!
Real estate blog Estately has conducted a study of the scariest states in America or what is scaring residents the most.
Hurricanes, shark attacks and volcanoes are all part of the criteria. Texas came in third, right behind Georgia and Florida.
The Lone Star State's eastern neighbor Lousiana came in fourth, followed by Alabama, North Carolina, California, South Carolina, Mississippi and Virginia. Rival Oklahoma just missed out on the top 10, coming in at No. 11.
"Basically, Texas is a preview of the apocalypse, and this study doesn't even take into account alligators, chupacabres, global warming, or zombie attacks," Estately's Ryan Nickum wrote.

Study: Texas among scariest states in U.S. - Houston Chronicle

Highlights of the photo gallery captions in the link.

Texas was the scariest state for the fear of spiders, 2nd for snakes, 3rd for heights ( Maybe Houston heights) ?, and perhaps the most odd, 18th scariest state for volcanos ? Why are any Texans afraid of volcanos?

[lonestar2007]

Makes you wonder just how stupid can it get.

[TreeBeard]

Go Florida! We're number 1!

I particularly like that we rank 23rd for volcanoes and 30th for clowns out of the fifty states. I frankly do not understand the volcano threat, but take umbrage that we rank 30th for clowns. I live in Florida and will attest that Florida has more clowns per capita that Ringling Bros, which by the way has its headquarters in Florida.

[Restrain]

I would think Floridians would be more afraid of lightning than Mass due to the amount we get here. Guess we just get used to it.

[need4speed2012]

10 Most Dangerous States in US – 2014

10 Most Dangerous States in US - 2014

[doctorjef]

I find the assertion about Texas' scariness to be absurd (although its politics worry me!). The thing is, when I consulted that list, I saw that Delaware comes in at sixth scariest, due to its high crime rate in poor neighborhoods (the article misrepresented Wilmington as having globally high crime, which isn't true -- the city has both very posh neighborhoods and very shooty, ghetto ones (snooty ones and shooty ones?!), and most of what is generically called "Wilmington" actually lies outside the city limits and is made up of quiet, low crime suburbs). But here's the deal, although some people will be disproportionately and unrealistically scared of crime, when in fact they would actually end up living in suburbs where they would have little chance of encountering any crime, most people know that they can avoid specific dangers such as sharks, high crime neighborhoods, and cancer clusters. In contrast, things like tornados and snakes will impress people as unavoidable if you live in regions of the country that seem to have a lot of those type things. Of course, the danger of tornados gets way exaggerated, and IME scorpions and snakes tend to be most common in new housing developments where there's still lots of undeveloped country in immediate proximity. It's just that viewing these things from a distance, people imagine they are ubiquitous and constant, when in fact they are rare and/or environmentally very limited and specific events.

[hoffdano]

I hope it works in scaring people away from moving here....

[SVTRay]

Sounds like some states are trying to run damage control. Example: People as well as businesses are fleeing California by the truck loads. So they need to plug the hole fast before they sink.

[doctorjef]

Originally Posted by SVTRay

Sounds like some states are trying to run damage control. Example: People as well as businesses are fleeing California by the truck loads. So they need to plug the hole fast before they sink.

I'm not one of the Cali-bashers, but this brings to mind something I was going to say in my earlier post. I'm as susceptible to unknown dangers as other people, and California is a good example: the prospect of a major earthquake scares me. After all, you can avoid living in places in that state that are highly susceptible to forest fires and mudslides, but quakes - like tornados - seem to be one of those dangers over which you've no control. Having lived in Texas so many years and never been closely menaced by a tornado, I don't have an unrealistic fear or misperceptions about such weather. By contrast, having only lived in southern CA as a very small child, I have an irrational fear of encountering a major quake whilst visiting Cali. Ditto gators if I were ever to move to Florida.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

Spiders and prisons and bears! Oh, my!
Real estate blog Estately has conducted a study of the scariest states in America or what is scaring residents the most.
Hurricanes, shark attacks and volcanoes are all part of the criteria. Texas came in third, right behind Georgia and Florida.
The Lone Star State's eastern neighbor Lousiana came in fourth, followed by Alabama, North Carolina, California, South Carolina, Mississippi and Virginia. Rival Oklahoma just missed out on the top 10, coming in at No. 11.
"Basically, Texas is a preview of the apocalypse, and this study doesn't even take into account alligators, chupacabres, global warming, or zombie attacks," Estately's Ryan Nickum wrote.

Study: Texas among scariest states in U.S. - Houston Chronicle

Remember these are two different list. The one above ^ list what peoples fears are, whether they are logical or not. The list below posted by need4speed is a more quantitative list of which states are the most dangerous based on specific criteria. There does not appear to be a high correlation between the two, but an interesting comparison nonetheless.

Originally Posted by need4speed2012

10 Most Dangerous States in US – 2014

10 Most Dangerous States in US - 2014