WASHINGTON — Say what you will about how awful it is to drive in the nation’s capital, a new study could give drivers another reason to complain.
A recent WalletHub report compared driving laws in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. in order to find out which states take the hardest line on “dangerous driving behavior.” The results? The D.C. region is one of the strictest jurisdictions in the country when it comes to penalizing rule-breaking motorists.
Virginia was the sixth strictest; D.C. ranked 10th strictest; and Maryland ranked 16th.
The rankings were based on 12 metrics, such as the average increase in insurance costs after a speeding ticket, speed camera use and whether or not states automatically cited drivers for reckless driving based on reaching a specific speed threshold. In D.C., anything over 30 mph could constitute reckless driving. The threshold is 20 mph in Virginia. Maryland had not set such a limit, according to the study.
Colorado topped the report’s list for the most strict. Texas ranked last, making it the most lenient. It’s probably no coincidence, then, that the Lone Star State fared pretty well on WalletHub’s list of best cities for drivers (Lubbock ranked first and Corpus Christi ranked second).
D.C. ranked 99th out of 100 in that study — shocker, right?
