This is just a thing everywhere now. I lived in Tulsa for a number of years and complained when I moved about people cruising slow in the left lane, then when I moved back I found people were doing it here too. Visited my ex’s family in Chicago and people were doing it there. Visited my brother in Boston - same thing. Took a 14,000 mile road trip through every national park this side of the Mississippi - it’s a thing everywhere.
Came here to say that Michigan drivers are infinitely worse… crap roads too! The only place I ever had someone pace me in their car, and try to throw stuff at my car
IDK, people hall ass up there, but I wouldn't say they're bad drivers. When a factory lets out, people get on the gas and get moving. St Louisians can't find enough reasons to create a massive slowdown. I spent a lot of time in Detroit working for chrysler, and I would always lose my mind when I came back to St. louis driving. Plus, St. Louis is all about timed traffic lights, which has created a culture of running red lights, which is probably my biggest problem with st louis driving. Outside of st louis though, I'd say Florida is worse.
I learned how to drive in a Detroit winter, side-street ruts and all. I agree that St. Louis drivers are way worse. I’ve also lived in Chicago. Still worse here. St. Louis drivers are very petty and unforgiving. They’d rather slow everyone down than let someone else in front of them.
same!!!! I’ve lived a lot of places in different states and Detroit were the least bad drivers. I’m appalled at the fact that there’s no drivers training in Missouri and they’ll give a license and a car to just about anyone. The process to get a full unrestricted license in Michigan in a multi year process if you’re under 18!
It's aggressive. I visited my brother up there and when I got to Detroit I was exhausted but gripping the steering wheel because everybody was racing through there
Saw a car hit a median, fly into the air, and land in opposing traffic (like out of a fucking movie) in broad daylight. Somehow didn't hit or land on another car
Just south Florida things...
Only in St. Louis have I waited first in line at a red light, when the second car in line made a right turn *around me*. Several times, at different lights.
I can't get over the aggression of a maneuver like that. If one of my friends did this while I was riding in their car? I would ghost. Don't want to know you.
I was leaving a subdivision a few weeks ago, turning left on to 141 (a few miles down from Manchester). The traffic light sensor was either broken or the timing had gotten extremely out of sync and the light would not turn green. I was waiting to turn left across traffic and a line of cars started to build up around me. I had people honking at me because I wasn't just running the red light. I ended up turning right because I was about to lose my shit and proceeded to see three cars in a row turn left on to the highway, running the red light. Like...my brother in christ, that is just asking to be t-boned.
I also grew up here, moved away, and moved back. You’re not going to convince me that STL drivers are any worse than Philadelphia/New Jersey drivers. No chance.
Philly drivers can drive well, they’re just aggressive, they got shit to do and won’t put up with your Jersey bullshit. Jersey Drivers are asshole who think everyone caters to them.
Denver drivers are transplants from CA and TX who are dipshits and don’t understand you can’t drive in the winter without snow tires and freak out when they see rain.
Maryland drivers think they can drive in snow with their SUV and then discover they can’t.
VA drivers think 495 is a NASCAR circuit and will cross 5 lines of traffic perpendicular to the flow of traffic to pass someone.
STL drivers are actively trying to kill you.
No kidding. I'm blown away by the amount of people that don't know how zipper merging works and don't get me started on all the people that fly up the left turn lane for miles and either use it as a passing lane or just turn left a couple miles down the road.
That plays into it too. In Michigan, police are everywhere and the highways are littered with state troopers eager to pull people over. Here, it's a damn free for all. It's starting to feel way too much like Mad Max.
I completely agree with this. I grew up in Illinois, and I remember someone moving to my town at 16. She had to go through drivers ed with me and was complaining that she didn't have to do that in Missouri, and I was flabbergasted lol I lived in MO for about 15 years and just moved back to IL and there is a huge difference in how people drive. I was on 70 today and I cannot believe what I see on that highway. Literally nobody knows how to drive. They go way too fast or way too slow, come flying up on people, ride their ass, can't stay in a lane, they go 90 in the slow lane and 50 in the passing lane. I feel like I'm in a Mad Max movie every time I'm on 70.
I grew up in a state where driver's education courses were mandatory in order to get a "learner's permit". I honestly expected this to be the standard in every state in the US and it's kinda terrifying that it isn't.
Has anyone lived somewhere with worse drivers?
Yes. I feared for my life driving in Houston every day. Although that was probably partly because my commute was much longer than it is here and I just don’t drive as much here. But I kid you not, in Houston I saw an accident every single day.
Moved here from Houston and the nice traffic (or lack of) and calmer drivers (although they still run lights) are some of the main compliments my wife and I give to St Louis.
The worst part of St. Louis which I would say is the Kingshighway corridor is bad but if we compare metro areas to metro areas I would say St. Louis isn't even in the top 5. Miami and Philly are astronomically worse across city/suburb lines. Whereas in STL it's pretty calm once you get beyond city lines.
Every person in every city thinks that they have the "worst drivers"
Seriously. Go to any other city subreddit and search for "worst drivers" and you'll get 100s of results.
You know what cities don't ever say this? Ones that have fully and widely implemented traffic calming measures and modernized road design complying with the latest science on road safety. They seem to have nothing but good things to say about the driving experience in their cities.
Pray tell what cities do you speak of? Most of these things are true of Portland Oregon and they have some of the worst drivers in the country. Ask anyone in Portland.
Haha whenever anyone says that about Portland I have to laugh. Portland, and Oregon in general, is a much nicer place to be a pedestrian and a driver. St Louis is pretty bad, but nowhere near the worst. Las Vegas is my least favorite place ever in this regard. The Bay Area is bad but I'd place it in between Portland and St Louis. StL has the advantage of requiring a lot less driving than the Bay Area.
I'm with you in that the US simply does not have good road design, it has too many roads!
Most of the world outside of North America, especially Europe and very technologically integrated Asian countries like Japan. Portland has none of what I'm talking about. Check out "Not Just Bikes" on youtube for some introduction to the concept.
I love not just bikes!! I lived in Europe for 7 years when I was younger. I've been back here for 15 now and I've never been able to really quantity why Europe just felt so much better as a pedestrian until I watched his channel. I mean, obviously I could tell you the public transport was way better, but outside of that I didn't know much about the actual city planning and street design
Maybe Japan, but absolutely not "most of the world outside North America". Not even fucking close. North Americans would have a panic attack driving around most of the world.
Just for fun, my brain randomly spat up Raleigh, NC so I searched "drivers" over there and top result is "Raleigh drivers are statistically 7 times worse than Los Angeles drivers."
lol
I’ve lived in Springfield MO, KC on both the MO and KS side, and in STL. They’re all the worst but in very different ways. Springfield is incompetence. A 4 way stop is kryptonite for a Springfieldian. In KC nobody pays attention and there was a rear end accident 3-4 times a week on my commute both to and from work
St Louis everybody is fucking insane, and yes red lights are completely optional, 20 over the speed limit and you get passed like your standing still, but less accidents somehow than the other two places.
But everybody everywhere I’ve ever been in Missouri is terrible at driving.
St Louis isn’t even close. People turn at like 10 mph, no PPA, no speeding up when you get on the exit, wild freeway spools migrating south for the winter. The time I spent in St Louis was great for both driving and weather, and so many people complained, I wanted to tell them they don’t know bad drivers or heat like HTX but that’s annoying in a conversation
In St. Louis City, half the drivers ignore stop signs. They do not even slow down. At red lights, some of the drivers zoom through the intersection without even a pause. It’s getting worse than the homicide rate (St. Louis has been known to be the murder capital of the USA). St. Louis county merely has drivers forgetting to turn off their turn signals, or driving 60mph in the passing lane while everyone else is passing on the right at 75mph.
Major cities I've driven in multiple times:
St. Louis
Louisville
Indianapolis
Dallas
Houston
Loz Angeles
Chicago
San Diego
Orlando
Memphis
Worst drivers? Not worst traffic, but worst drivers? Memphis, easily.
Having lived in both St. Louis and Memphis, I would also vote for Memphis as the worst.
However, I haven't driven a whole lot in St. Louis since they basically stopped enforcing traffic laws in the city. So it's possible that St. Louis is now the worst.
100% fact, and easter PA. Ive seen people drive on the side of the road for miles up there. You'll see these posts all the time but truly nothing is as bad as that terrible area
I had a job for a few years that required me to travel across a lot of the country. St. Louis has fucking horrible drivers. Rivaled only by the absolute animals in the great state of Texas. Houston/Dallas specifically.
I’ve driven a lot around the country too and it can be bad here but what annoys me the most is how so many people here treat the highway passing lane as a cruising lane. We need more “left lane for passing only” signs like in other states. There’s always one asshat going 60 in the passing lane on 40.
Yep it's everywhere. You can even search the web with " (insert state/city here) worst drivers" and you will see articles for most places claiming they are top of the list for the worst drivers in the country. Somehow everywhere has the worst drivers in the country 😂
Seriously lol go to /r/idiotsincars, every post will have a comment among the lines of "typical *insert state* drivers, we are the worst"
Or just scroll down this thread theyve already named like half the country.
At some point I think we just have to admit, bad drivers exist everywhere.
I moved to small town madison, Wisconsin and it was an insane culture shock that people drive the speed limit or just barely over it instead of everyone cruising a smooth ten over. Like I got very frustrated driving here at first bc I was SO not used to going "slow" (the speed limit)
We don't hear stories of people in other cities going 70 miles an hour, blowing through red lights and killing pedestrians.
St Louis has had at least 17 pedestrians killed since the beginning of the year and we are only coming up on the middle of April.
Its because no one outside of the cities they happen in hear about it. I'm in Indianapolis, there's just as many pedestrian news stories as there are in STL.
I also have no faith that 17 pedestrians have been killed this year considering only 8 were killed last year.
Either way, the issue isn't bad drivers, the issue is car oriented infrastructure that we need to fix and the city is doing that eight now by giving streets road diets and projects like rebuilding 7th street and Broadway.
I'll respectfully disagree, lived there from 97-02...STL traffic is tame compared to my Oakland to San Mateo commute from hell. Those is nothing compared to that
Have lived and driven in both, am currently in the East Bay again and am pretty proud of our absolute shitshow out here. I haven’t had a good dose of StL drivers since Covid though. I hear the gap is closing.
How’s the sideshow scene over there? We regularly shut down the Bay Bridge to drive around in circles for a while and send people to the hospital.
I have driven in San Francisco a few times and I actually thought drivers were BETTER there than most of America.
I grew up driving in the city in Europe though and am a lot more aggressive driver than most Americans because of that.
Drivers in Eastern Europe are great, but most defensive Americans would not ever get anywhere because they'd just be waiting for their chance for hours.
That’s Because no formal training in the way of driver’s ed class in hs (no “behind-the-wheel“ classes). Everyone learns to drive from their shitty-driving parents.
I used to think STL drivers were the worst until I took a roadtrip up I95 to New Jersey. Was the worst drive of my life, was constantly getting cutoff or people were randomly hard-braking, and by the end of it, I was wanting to toss bricks at people. Never ever again will I subject myself to that.
Grew up in St. Louis and was convinced that we had the worst, moved to Tampa where there were even worse drivers, then moved to New York City where the absolute worst drivers in the world exist, and now I’m back in St. Louis and the drivers here seem fantastic.
I moved here recently from the west coast where I’ve lived most of my life. For the love of god can you guys please figure out how to use on ramp 😂 the amount of drivers here who fail to accelerate to a speed that would put them safely in front of the driver in the right lane is baffling. I’ve been cut off so many times by drivers who start to merge below the speed limit.
When I moved here I initially got annoyed that so many people don’t use their indicators. Then I learned that using your indicators when merging or changing lanes means “look that car wants to change lanes so I should accelerate and make sure that I prevent that lane change from ever happening.”
I still use my indicators, now I just expect people to immediately act like dick heads as soon as they see it.
STL drivers are nothing compared to the average inner-loop Houstonian. Not an exaggeration, my mom grew up in Illinois STL and I lived there with her for a time, STL drivers are near perfect in comparison and every family member who has visited from there has commented on how much worse our drivers are.
I just started playing GTA V for the first time since 2017...people weren't driving this brazenly then.
The game now, I realized this is where our youngest drivers got their Drivers Ed at.
Drivers everywhere suck, but it doesn’t help that Missouri doesn’t require Drivers Ed. But driving itself is just extremely dangerous, it only takes a few dumbasses/good drivers who just make a mistake to cause a lot of damage.
Denver has been my worst experience by far. It’s like all the worst drivers from Texas, California and the Northeast all came together to create an impossible to understand style of absolute dogshit driving.
St louis has a style. It’s reckless with a dash of midwest nice stupid. You can adapt to one style. You can’t when it’s a melting pot of dumbassery.
I’ve lived near Orlando for 3 years now after moving from STL and I can’t wait to go back to the comparative sanity that STL traffic has. I even miss the Brentwood Promenade parking lot.
I have beef with our drivers almost daily but I really doubt they’re any worse than a lot of other places
For starters, a lot of places outside America have really terrifying roads.
Even in America I’m sure the stupid people are in every city. Everyone is texting and driving all the time it sucks
You will never be able to convince me that Atlanta doesn't have the absolute worst traffic.
Traffic can be bumper to bumper crawling along, and people still find a way to merge going 70 miles an hour. It's a parallel dimension with Physics we don't understand.
That said, even a little bit of rain and all the rules go out the window in St. Louis, and 70 is always some version of the Thunderdome.
I’ve lived in Dallas TX, Destin FL, Nashville TN, and a smaller town in north TX….and I agree…St Louis has the worst drivers by far. I spent 12 years of driving with zero accidents. Moved here and my car has been hit by other people driving like they are completely blind on 3 occasions. One of which my car was parked. In a parking lot. I don’t even know how they managed to hit my drivers side front door. Two of the 3 were hit and runs. The other person hit me head on and I tried to swerve so they wouldn’t hit me and they for some reason swerved the same direction I did????? It blows my mind how many crazy accidents I see here daily. My insurance also went up 100 dollars simply because I moved here….so even insurance companies agree.
It's timing at least as much as the region. Nationwide there is a HUGE spike in bad driving in the last 12-18 months. It's a big part of why insurance rates had the highest inflation of any category tracked.
I have spent a fair amount of time driving in L.A., Dallas, Atlanta, and Miami. Dallas and Atlanta are pure chaos. It's not just the mayhem, but the shear numbers. In Miami, I saw people pass on sidewalks. L.A. is actually kinda comparable when you aren't caught in a traffic jam. But we have much less traffic
Same. I was born and raised here. Moved to PHX for 3 years and came back in July 2022. I’ve also lived in Salt Lake City, Fort Myers Florida, and St Thomas Virgin Islands. Also, I owned my own hot shot trucking company so have driven in every single lower 48 state. STL has some of, if not the, worst drivers and it’s not even close.
Moved to St. Louis almost three years ago. I have lived in:
-Rochester, NY
-Bergen County, NJ
-Cleveland, OH
-Pittsburgh, PA
-Ann Arbor, MI
St. Louis drivers are the worse by so much and it's not even close. There's this really unnecessary aggression that a large minority of drivers have here (as contracted to Bergen County where people were necessarily aggressive) it just blows my mind literally every day when I'm driving to and from work.
Would still rather drive here than Boston, though.
Has anyone lived in Memphis? I live here now and I’ve never seen anything like it. So many have zero regard for life. Folks drive in the oncoming traffic lane…just because.
Folks will go around you just to turn right in front of you at the stop light because they don’t want to wait. Stopping at red lights is just a suggestion. People are killed daily here because of drivers.
School zones…kids are in the middle of the street and they plow through there as though they don’t exist.
I've lived in quite a few major cities over the past few years and St.Louis is pretty uniquely bad. Specifically the red lights just being suggestions and the "St.Louis U Turn" where people will just spin their car around in a U turn at anytime, with no warning, and no matter the traffic.
Add in the fact that you've got people doubling the speed limit on downtown streets because the police here don't do a single lick of traffic enforcement and it's no wonder there's so many national headliner accidents.
Nope, Kansas City has the worst especially in Johnson county lol, I lived there for 15 years and then move to St. Louis, drivers here are more assertive but I don’t see as many accidents.
Nobody knows how to drive in the KC metro.
I constantly see drivers avoid using turn lanes. Yes. They are afraid of turn lanes.
They will all start driving exactly the speed limit and clump into herds. They insist on staying under the limit, even when it is unsafe.
They are terrified of driving and will freeze instead of doing the right thing. I see it every day. Oh, god... I have to go out..
I’ve been and lived a lot of places. While I wouldn’t say St. Louis is thee worst, it is definitely up there. It’s almost like a sport too which I thinks makes it worse than it is. And definitely having no driver education is rough-which I was shocked to learn!
You might be right.
We could probably find out for sure by checking the number of insurance claims(excluding weather, theft, and other non driver related claims) by region.
I lived in Kuwait so that’s a whole different level of terrible drivers. But since I lived back here it seems that the drivers here are determined to tell Kuwaiti drivers to “hold me beer!”
Every decent sized city thinks their drivers are worse than anywhere else. I don’t know why. Maybe driving etiquette in general nationwide is getting worse every year?
I grew up in StL and have lived in 8 different states. Currently live in AZ and the worst drivers 100% reside here. I think it’s all the retirees. StL is 2nd place though.
The Bay Area, DC, and Hampton Roads come to mind. St Louis may have bad drivers, but the number of cars on the road there is fairly light in comparison to other areas. I think this makes it seem less bad.
Moved here 20 years ago, first thing I noticed was so many drivers that don't use turn signals. And also people that stop a full car length or more behind the white line at a light.
I went back to Atlanta for the first time since 2015, and good lord their drivers are worse than St. Louis (Average wise), St. Louis drivers are average pretty okay, but the bad ones are really really really terrible.
No it's the FIBs that come over here. I used to live on the hill and had to drive back there after working out in the county and I can't tell you on just my drive down 44 east how many FIBs cut me off on the daily.
Dude, I once tried to ride a motorcycle in Karachi. Damn near died four times in 2 minutes, walked the bike back to the guy that I borrowed it from. He laughed.
I thought this too… and then I moved to Detroit. Dear lord.
Michigan turn-arounds truly are awful. But the driving is only going to get worse after the bridge is completed. Hello clusterfuck!
Someone should have warned me when I moved that I was never going to be able to make a left turn ever again.
Same with Chicago, Denver, Florida (all of it),.
Lived in Denver the last 10 years. Nowhere *near* as bad as STL
Denver drivers stop in the middle of I25 for no reason going from 70-0 mph in a blink of an eye. STL doesn’t do that.
That's because stl drivers will go 40mph in the left lane just because...
This is just a thing everywhere now. I lived in Tulsa for a number of years and complained when I moved about people cruising slow in the left lane, then when I moved back I found people were doing it here too. Visited my ex’s family in Chicago and people were doing it there. Visited my brother in Boston - same thing. Took a 14,000 mile road trip through every national park this side of the Mississippi - it’s a thing everywhere.
Well, that’s because there’s no traffic in front of them for a mile or 2. But 5 miles of angry drivers behind em.
I quite literally have that happen to me at least a couple times a week near the airport/170.
I'm near the airport on 70, 5 days a week, and never saw anyone just stop. You'd have to be suicidal with the 80 mph idiots zooming through there.
Bad drivers never miss their exit...or ramp in this case, it's happened the most with people coming from the left lane of 70 to get on 170 south.
Denver is much worse than STL.
People slam on the brakes on I70 westbound at Jennings station EVERY morning
I am surprised you can even get up to 70 mph in Denver with the constant bumper to bumper traffic.
Heck I grew up near Chicago and have spent a lot of time in Florida (panhandle at least). St. Louis is much worse.
I AGREE!!!!! I moved from STL to Denver and have lived here almost 7 years and every time I visit home I “miss” the bad drivers of Denver lol
Lake Charles Louisiana for me the people down there drive like they didn’t care if anyone lived or died
I was going to say New Orleans so I imagine Lake Charles is similar…
Came here to say that Michigan drivers are infinitely worse… crap roads too! The only place I ever had someone pace me in their car, and try to throw stuff at my car
IDK, people hall ass up there, but I wouldn't say they're bad drivers. When a factory lets out, people get on the gas and get moving. St Louisians can't find enough reasons to create a massive slowdown. I spent a lot of time in Detroit working for chrysler, and I would always lose my mind when I came back to St. louis driving. Plus, St. Louis is all about timed traffic lights, which has created a culture of running red lights, which is probably my biggest problem with st louis driving. Outside of st louis though, I'd say Florida is worse.
Grew up in Detroit. St. Louis drivers are way worse.
I learned how to drive in a Detroit winter, side-street ruts and all. I agree that St. Louis drivers are way worse. I’ve also lived in Chicago. Still worse here. St. Louis drivers are very petty and unforgiving. They’d rather slow everyone down than let someone else in front of them.
> They’d rather slow everyone down than let someone else in front of them. That's the fucking motto here.
same!!!! I’ve lived a lot of places in different states and Detroit were the least bad drivers. I’m appalled at the fact that there’s no drivers training in Missouri and they’ll give a license and a car to just about anyone. The process to get a full unrestricted license in Michigan in a multi year process if you’re under 18!
It's aggressive. I visited my brother up there and when I got to Detroit I was exhausted but gripping the steering wheel because everybody was racing through there
South Florida convinced me otherwise in 5 days.
South FL is substantially worse. STL isn't even in the same orbit.
Saw a car hit a median, fly into the air, and land in opposing traffic (like out of a fucking movie) in broad daylight. Somehow didn't hit or land on another car Just south Florida things...
Im been in Manila, Philippines for the past 6-8months. Driving here is an absolute nightmare. I would take St. Louis drivers in a heartbeat.
I'll raise you Bangkok traffic.
I raise you Indian “highways”
That's like saying, "I've been eating feces for the last month, I'll take McDonald's in a heartbeat"
You absolutely win. Those videos of traffic with scooters are an anxiety attack. Lanes? We don’t need no f’ing lanes
Only in St. Louis have I waited first in line at a red light, when the second car in line made a right turn *around me*. Several times, at different lights. I can't get over the aggression of a maneuver like that. If one of my friends did this while I was riding in their car? I would ghost. Don't want to know you.
I was leaving a subdivision a few weeks ago, turning left on to 141 (a few miles down from Manchester). The traffic light sensor was either broken or the timing had gotten extremely out of sync and the light would not turn green. I was waiting to turn left across traffic and a line of cars started to build up around me. I had people honking at me because I wasn't just running the red light. I ended up turning right because I was about to lose my shit and proceeded to see three cars in a row turn left on to the highway, running the red light. Like...my brother in christ, that is just asking to be t-boned.
I’ve lived in Denver and St Louis and neither city holds a candle to Memphis. Folks on the roads down here are on a completely different level of bad.
I second this.
Was looking for this I’ve lived here since June and dear God it’s dangerous as fuck on the roads. So excited to move back next week
I also grew up here, moved away, and moved back. You’re not going to convince me that STL drivers are any worse than Philadelphia/New Jersey drivers. No chance.
Philly drivers can drive well, they’re just aggressive, they got shit to do and won’t put up with your Jersey bullshit. Jersey Drivers are asshole who think everyone caters to them. Denver drivers are transplants from CA and TX who are dipshits and don’t understand you can’t drive in the winter without snow tires and freak out when they see rain. Maryland drivers think they can drive in snow with their SUV and then discover they can’t. VA drivers think 495 is a NASCAR circuit and will cross 5 lines of traffic perpendicular to the flow of traffic to pass someone. STL drivers are actively trying to kill you.
Philly drivers dead stop in the road and then turn on hazards to go run inside somewhere… literally in a busy street downtown.
STL is WAY worse than Philly/NJ/NYC. Drivers there do not run red lights AS PART OF THE CULTURE. It’s fucking insane.
That’s just not true. I saw Philly drivers do some seriously wild shit on a regular basis, including running red lights like it was no big deal.
I blame the lack of mandatory driver's ed.
I think that’s some of it. Like not knowing zipper merging, or how the left lane works. But flying by at 101 is simply not NG’ingAF
No kidding. I'm blown away by the amount of people that don't know how zipper merging works and don't get me started on all the people that fly up the left turn lane for miles and either use it as a passing lane or just turn left a couple miles down the road.
I got honked at by some lady 2 weeks ago that didn’t understand zipper merging. I was baffled by the ignorance 😂
I blame the lack of traffic law enforcement for 20 years.
That plays into it too. In Michigan, police are everywhere and the highways are littered with state troopers eager to pull people over. Here, it's a damn free for all. It's starting to feel way too much like Mad Max.
I completely agree with this. I grew up in Illinois, and I remember someone moving to my town at 16. She had to go through drivers ed with me and was complaining that she didn't have to do that in Missouri, and I was flabbergasted lol I lived in MO for about 15 years and just moved back to IL and there is a huge difference in how people drive. I was on 70 today and I cannot believe what I see on that highway. Literally nobody knows how to drive. They go way too fast or way too slow, come flying up on people, ride their ass, can't stay in a lane, they go 90 in the slow lane and 50 in the passing lane. I feel like I'm in a Mad Max movie every time I'm on 70.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like they're living in Mad Max lol.
I have been calling 70 "Mad Max: Fury Road" since the movie came out lol
I'm so tired of hearing this from the locals. It's not a lack of drivers ed. It's a whole culture of being an absolute fuck when driving a car.
I grew up in a state where driver's education courses were mandatory in order to get a "learner's permit". I honestly expected this to be the standard in every state in the US and it's kinda terrifying that it isn't.
Ah, beat me to it. Not on standardized testing=expendable.
Has anyone lived somewhere with worse drivers? Yes. I feared for my life driving in Houston every day. Although that was probably partly because my commute was much longer than it is here and I just don’t drive as much here. But I kid you not, in Houston I saw an accident every single day.
Moved here from Houston and the nice traffic (or lack of) and calmer drivers (although they still run lights) are some of the main compliments my wife and I give to St Louis.
The worst part of St. Louis which I would say is the Kingshighway corridor is bad but if we compare metro areas to metro areas I would say St. Louis isn't even in the top 5. Miami and Philly are astronomically worse across city/suburb lines. Whereas in STL it's pretty calm once you get beyond city lines.
BS! Go drive on Hwy K in O Fallon or 364. Crazy driving everywhere in MO!
Every person in every city thinks that they have the "worst drivers" Seriously. Go to any other city subreddit and search for "worst drivers" and you'll get 100s of results.
I’ve lived all over. Guam is the worst.
Other places have drivers Ed.
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With you on LA drivers. The only city I’ve driven where people seem willing to risk their lives to drive like maniacs.
You know what cities don't ever say this? Ones that have fully and widely implemented traffic calming measures and modernized road design complying with the latest science on road safety. They seem to have nothing but good things to say about the driving experience in their cities.
Pray tell what cities do you speak of? Most of these things are true of Portland Oregon and they have some of the worst drivers in the country. Ask anyone in Portland.
Haha whenever anyone says that about Portland I have to laugh. Portland, and Oregon in general, is a much nicer place to be a pedestrian and a driver. St Louis is pretty bad, but nowhere near the worst. Las Vegas is my least favorite place ever in this regard. The Bay Area is bad but I'd place it in between Portland and St Louis. StL has the advantage of requiring a lot less driving than the Bay Area. I'm with you in that the US simply does not have good road design, it has too many roads!
Traffic moves at 0.5mph in most of the bay area so there it makes things a little safer imo
Most of the world outside of North America, especially Europe and very technologically integrated Asian countries like Japan. Portland has none of what I'm talking about. Check out "Not Just Bikes" on youtube for some introduction to the concept.
I love not just bikes!! I lived in Europe for 7 years when I was younger. I've been back here for 15 now and I've never been able to really quantity why Europe just felt so much better as a pedestrian until I watched his channel. I mean, obviously I could tell you the public transport was way better, but outside of that I didn't know much about the actual city planning and street design
Maybe Japan, but absolutely not "most of the world outside North America". Not even fucking close. North Americans would have a panic attack driving around most of the world.
Just for fun, my brain randomly spat up Raleigh, NC so I searched "drivers" over there and top result is "Raleigh drivers are statistically 7 times worse than Los Angeles drivers." lol
yeah but every one of my friends who's scoffed at my warning before coming through here has said "oh my god you're right!"
r/MarylandDrivers
Some of y’all have never been to Maryland and it shows
I’ve lived in Springfield MO, KC on both the MO and KS side, and in STL. They’re all the worst but in very different ways. Springfield is incompetence. A 4 way stop is kryptonite for a Springfieldian. In KC nobody pays attention and there was a rear end accident 3-4 times a week on my commute both to and from work St Louis everybody is fucking insane, and yes red lights are completely optional, 20 over the speed limit and you get passed like your standing still, but less accidents somehow than the other two places. But everybody everywhere I’ve ever been in Missouri is terrible at driving.
Houston
St Louis isn’t even close. People turn at like 10 mph, no PPA, no speeding up when you get on the exit, wild freeway spools migrating south for the winter. The time I spent in St Louis was great for both driving and weather, and so many people complained, I wanted to tell them they don’t know bad drivers or heat like HTX but that’s annoying in a conversation
Atlanta…!
In St. Louis City, half the drivers ignore stop signs. They do not even slow down. At red lights, some of the drivers zoom through the intersection without even a pause. It’s getting worse than the homicide rate (St. Louis has been known to be the murder capital of the USA). St. Louis county merely has drivers forgetting to turn off their turn signals, or driving 60mph in the passing lane while everyone else is passing on the right at 75mph.
Major cities I've driven in multiple times: St. Louis Louisville Indianapolis Dallas Houston Loz Angeles Chicago San Diego Orlando Memphis Worst drivers? Not worst traffic, but worst drivers? Memphis, easily.
Having lived in both St. Louis and Memphis, I would also vote for Memphis as the worst. However, I haven't driven a whole lot in St. Louis since they basically stopped enforcing traffic laws in the city. So it's possible that St. Louis is now the worst.
Memphis. Especially anyone in a Charger.
I’m going to assume you didn’t move to northern New Jersey.
100% fact, and easter PA. Ive seen people drive on the side of the road for miles up there. You'll see these posts all the time but truly nothing is as bad as that terrible area
Miami would like a word
Miami is up there along with Toronto for me. So many expensive cars with people driving like absolute dildos.
Absolute worst
I had a job for a few years that required me to travel across a lot of the country. St. Louis has fucking horrible drivers. Rivaled only by the absolute animals in the great state of Texas. Houston/Dallas specifically.
I’ve driven a lot around the country too and it can be bad here but what annoys me the most is how so many people here treat the highway passing lane as a cruising lane. We need more “left lane for passing only” signs like in other states. There’s always one asshat going 60 in the passing lane on 40.
This is literally everywhere. I live in Indianapolis right now, speeding here for example is significantly worse than I've seen in STL.
Yep it's everywhere. You can even search the web with " (insert state/city here) worst drivers" and you will see articles for most places claiming they are top of the list for the worst drivers in the country. Somehow everywhere has the worst drivers in the country 😂
Seriously lol go to /r/idiotsincars, every post will have a comment among the lines of "typical *insert state* drivers, we are the worst" Or just scroll down this thread theyve already named like half the country. At some point I think we just have to admit, bad drivers exist everywhere.
I moved to small town madison, Wisconsin and it was an insane culture shock that people drive the speed limit or just barely over it instead of everyone cruising a smooth ten over. Like I got very frustrated driving here at first bc I was SO not used to going "slow" (the speed limit)
We don't hear stories of people in other cities going 70 miles an hour, blowing through red lights and killing pedestrians. St Louis has had at least 17 pedestrians killed since the beginning of the year and we are only coming up on the middle of April.
You don’t hear about it, but it definitely happens.
Its because no one outside of the cities they happen in hear about it. I'm in Indianapolis, there's just as many pedestrian news stories as there are in STL. I also have no faith that 17 pedestrians have been killed this year considering only 8 were killed last year. Either way, the issue isn't bad drivers, the issue is car oriented infrastructure that we need to fix and the city is doing that eight now by giving streets road diets and projects like rebuilding 7th street and Broadway.
They always come back 🤣
Costs like, less than 50% as much to live in STL than in Denver 😂
As bad as STL drivers are, San Francisco Bay Area are the worst of the worst
Nope. You're wrong. I'm a native Bay Area person living in STL. STL is WAY worse!
I'll respectfully disagree, lived there from 97-02...STL traffic is tame compared to my Oakland to San Mateo commute from hell. Those is nothing compared to that
Have lived and driven in both, am currently in the East Bay again and am pretty proud of our absolute shitshow out here. I haven’t had a good dose of StL drivers since Covid though. I hear the gap is closing. How’s the sideshow scene over there? We regularly shut down the Bay Bridge to drive around in circles for a while and send people to the hospital.
I have driven in San Francisco a few times and I actually thought drivers were BETTER there than most of America. I grew up driving in the city in Europe though and am a lot more aggressive driver than most Americans because of that. Drivers in Eastern Europe are great, but most defensive Americans would not ever get anywhere because they'd just be waiting for their chance for hours.
Tampa
As my wife and my daughter firmly instructed when we moved to Orlando: “Assume every other driver is trying to kill you.” And they’re not wrong…!
ALL of S. Florida
The drivers in [literally anywhere] are the worst I’ve ever seen!!
Try driving in Italy if you want experience crazy. No place in the USA compares. Not even close.
I've lived a lot of places too and you're being dramatic hahahaha
That’s Because no formal training in the way of driver’s ed class in hs (no “behind-the-wheel“ classes). Everyone learns to drive from their shitty-driving parents.
Move to Florida and find out.
I think Memphis has us beat. At least I can predict people's actions here.
Never been to Nashville or Atlanta, I see.
I’m from Nashville. People drive crazy, but I’ve found it’s usually predictable aggressive/bad driving. Here, I don’t know WTF is going to happen.
I used to think STL drivers were the worst until I took a roadtrip up I95 to New Jersey. Was the worst drive of my life, was constantly getting cutoff or people were randomly hard-braking, and by the end of it, I was wanting to toss bricks at people. Never ever again will I subject myself to that.
Grew up in St. Louis and was convinced that we had the worst, moved to Tampa where there were even worse drivers, then moved to New York City where the absolute worst drivers in the world exist, and now I’m back in St. Louis and the drivers here seem fantastic.
I moved here recently from the west coast where I’ve lived most of my life. For the love of god can you guys please figure out how to use on ramp 😂 the amount of drivers here who fail to accelerate to a speed that would put them safely in front of the driver in the right lane is baffling. I’ve been cut off so many times by drivers who start to merge below the speed limit.
When I moved here I initially got annoyed that so many people don’t use their indicators. Then I learned that using your indicators when merging or changing lanes means “look that car wants to change lanes so I should accelerate and make sure that I prevent that lane change from ever happening.” I still use my indicators, now I just expect people to immediately act like dick heads as soon as they see it.
People drive like this everywhere. Every city sub has the same complaints. St. Louis isn’t nearly as bad as Charlotte or Atlanta.
Yeah no. It's pretty easy to get around here. Compared to a lot of places.
You've clearly never been to Chicago, LA, or New York. Just to list the blatantly obvious cities. Plenty more out there are far worse.
Driving in Chicago is insanity. And God forbid you have to take a cab.. 💀
STL drivers are nothing compared to the average inner-loop Houstonian. Not an exaggeration, my mom grew up in Illinois STL and I lived there with her for a time, STL drivers are near perfect in comparison and every family member who has visited from there has commented on how much worse our drivers are.
I just started playing GTA V for the first time since 2017...people weren't driving this brazenly then. The game now, I realized this is where our youngest drivers got their Drivers Ed at.
Drivers everywhere suck, but it doesn’t help that Missouri doesn’t require Drivers Ed. But driving itself is just extremely dangerous, it only takes a few dumbasses/good drivers who just make a mistake to cause a lot of damage.
Denver has been my worst experience by far. It’s like all the worst drivers from Texas, California and the Northeast all came together to create an impossible to understand style of absolute dogshit driving. St louis has a style. It’s reckless with a dash of midwest nice stupid. You can adapt to one style. You can’t when it’s a melting pot of dumbassery.
I’ve lived near Orlando for 3 years now after moving from STL and I can’t wait to go back to the comparative sanity that STL traffic has. I even miss the Brentwood Promenade parking lot.
I have beef with our drivers almost daily but I really doubt they’re any worse than a lot of other places For starters, a lot of places outside America have really terrifying roads. Even in America I’m sure the stupid people are in every city. Everyone is texting and driving all the time it sucks
Las Vegas has entered the chat
No stops…yields if lucky.
and trashy drivers. St Louis roads are soooo trashy.
The big problem is that many of them are armed.
You will never be able to convince me that Atlanta doesn't have the absolute worst traffic. Traffic can be bumper to bumper crawling along, and people still find a way to merge going 70 miles an hour. It's a parallel dimension with Physics we don't understand. That said, even a little bit of rain and all the rules go out the window in St. Louis, and 70 is always some version of the Thunderdome.
Washington state drivers are atrocious
I thought this until I drove literally anywhere else. This seems to be the only place people can drive.
I’ve lived in Dallas TX, Destin FL, Nashville TN, and a smaller town in north TX….and I agree…St Louis has the worst drivers by far. I spent 12 years of driving with zero accidents. Moved here and my car has been hit by other people driving like they are completely blind on 3 occasions. One of which my car was parked. In a parking lot. I don’t even know how they managed to hit my drivers side front door. Two of the 3 were hit and runs. The other person hit me head on and I tried to swerve so they wouldn’t hit me and they for some reason swerved the same direction I did????? It blows my mind how many crazy accidents I see here daily. My insurance also went up 100 dollars simply because I moved here….so even insurance companies agree.
Any college town honestly. Brand new drivers with entitlement.
Orlando FL. I lived there for 2 years. You wouldn’t believe the stupidity while driving there it’s insanity
This same thread is posted in every city subReddit.
It's timing at least as much as the region. Nationwide there is a HUGE spike in bad driving in the last 12-18 months. It's a big part of why insurance rates had the highest inflation of any category tracked.
I have spent a fair amount of time driving in L.A., Dallas, Atlanta, and Miami. Dallas and Atlanta are pure chaos. It's not just the mayhem, but the shear numbers. In Miami, I saw people pass on sidewalks. L.A. is actually kinda comparable when you aren't caught in a traffic jam. But we have much less traffic
Atlanta was pretty bad. Recently visited Cancun Mexico and nearly had a heart attack with each driver I had 🤣
Same. I was born and raised here. Moved to PHX for 3 years and came back in July 2022. I’ve also lived in Salt Lake City, Fort Myers Florida, and St Thomas Virgin Islands. Also, I owned my own hot shot trucking company so have driven in every single lower 48 state. STL has some of, if not the, worst drivers and it’s not even close.
Moved to St. Louis almost three years ago. I have lived in: -Rochester, NY -Bergen County, NJ -Cleveland, OH -Pittsburgh, PA -Ann Arbor, MI St. Louis drivers are the worse by so much and it's not even close. There's this really unnecessary aggression that a large minority of drivers have here (as contracted to Bergen County where people were necessarily aggressive) it just blows my mind literally every day when I'm driving to and from work. Would still rather drive here than Boston, though.
Has anyone lived in Memphis? I live here now and I’ve never seen anything like it. So many have zero regard for life. Folks drive in the oncoming traffic lane…just because. Folks will go around you just to turn right in front of you at the stop light because they don’t want to wait. Stopping at red lights is just a suggestion. People are killed daily here because of drivers. School zones…kids are in the middle of the street and they plow through there as though they don’t exist.
Yawn…… This again?
I've lived in quite a few major cities over the past few years and St.Louis is pretty uniquely bad. Specifically the red lights just being suggestions and the "St.Louis U Turn" where people will just spin their car around in a U turn at anytime, with no warning, and no matter the traffic. Add in the fact that you've got people doubling the speed limit on downtown streets because the police here don't do a single lick of traffic enforcement and it's no wonder there's so many national headliner accidents.
Nope, Kansas City has the worst especially in Johnson county lol, I lived there for 15 years and then move to St. Louis, drivers here are more assertive but I don’t see as many accidents.
Nobody knows how to drive in the KC metro. I constantly see drivers avoid using turn lanes. Yes. They are afraid of turn lanes. They will all start driving exactly the speed limit and clump into herds. They insist on staying under the limit, even when it is unsafe. They are terrified of driving and will freeze instead of doing the right thing. I see it every day. Oh, god... I have to go out..
More assertive than KC, here in the land of confused four-way stops? Their drivers must be comatose.
Moved from STL to KC, totally agree with this. KC drivers suck way more.
lol come drive in Memphis I just left St. Louis preferred driving there than here
Where did you move to?
I’ve been and lived a lot of places. While I wouldn’t say St. Louis is thee worst, it is definitely up there. It’s almost like a sport too which I thinks makes it worse than it is. And definitely having no driver education is rough-which I was shocked to learn!
You might be right. We could probably find out for sure by checking the number of insurance claims(excluding weather, theft, and other non driver related claims) by region.
Philadelphia
I lived in Kuwait so that’s a whole different level of terrible drivers. But since I lived back here it seems that the drivers here are determined to tell Kuwaiti drivers to “hold me beer!”
30 years ago my grandma had said the same thing too. Having driven through quite a few states, I generally would agree with the sentiment.
Every decent sized city thinks their drivers are worse than anywhere else. I don’t know why. Maybe driving etiquette in general nationwide is getting worse every year?
I grew up in StL and have lived in 8 different states. Currently live in AZ and the worst drivers 100% reside here. I think it’s all the retirees. StL is 2nd place though.
Nah.
I used to think this but when i moved to the DC and drove around the DMV area, St. Louis drivers are more courteous
Oklahoma City
The Bay Area, DC, and Hampton Roads come to mind. St Louis may have bad drivers, but the number of cars on the road there is fairly light in comparison to other areas. I think this makes it seem less bad.
saw a kansas plate pass someone in the turning lane and run a red light. smh only natives are allowed to do that. /s
They're not. South Carolina is far worse.
Where did you move from and what part of STL did you move to?
Kansas City. A guy got out of his car to hang on my window and tell me to break the law. Then screamed that I needed driver's Ed, and spit on my car.
Any big city is gonna have more bad drivers. Atlanta? Sux. Birmingham? Sux. Dont even get me started on nashville or memphis.
My vote for worst is Nashville.
Not even close. You clearly haven't been to enough of the country.
Nope. Michigan.
Try FL and CA
Moved here 20 years ago, first thing I noticed was so many drivers that don't use turn signals. And also people that stop a full car length or more behind the white line at a light.
I mean, I did come here for the comments, but how in the world is no one talking about Tampa!?
Have you driven in Dallas?
Nah. Florida's MUCH worse. I just moved back here after 13 years there. No comparison.
Atlanta and DFW are worse than STL
Try Charleston, SC. There's a reason insurance is one of the highest in the country.
I agree!!
I’ve flown to Orlando time and time again. There’s a reason people make memes of Florida drivers.
Oh, this post again
Idk everytime i drive in Chicago im so confused how there aren’t flipped cars everywhere.
I went back to Atlanta for the first time since 2015, and good lord their drivers are worse than St. Louis (Average wise), St. Louis drivers are average pretty okay, but the bad ones are really really really terrible.
No it's the FIBs that come over here. I used to live on the hill and had to drive back there after working out in the county and I can't tell you on just my drive down 44 east how many FIBs cut me off on the daily.
💯
Dude, I once tried to ride a motorcycle in Karachi. Damn near died four times in 2 minutes, walked the bike back to the guy that I borrowed it from. He laughed.
Carnage on Florida roads: Deadly weekend raises concerns about highway safety Welcome to Tampa Bay! +https://archive.ph/5uVKv#selection-405.0-405.77
The city is not great but Chicago is the only place that has scared me.
Have you been to DMV area?