Pull onto any American highway and you’ll quickly realize something: not all drivers are created equal. Some states have roads that feel almost peaceful. Others feel like an obstacle course of tailgaters, red-light runners, and drivers who apparently never learned what a turn signal is for.
Researchers, insurance analysts, and traffic safety organizations have spent years crunching the numbers. The data paints a pretty clear picture of which states top the rudeness charts. Buckle up. You might be surprised by what you find.
1. Hawaii: Paradise Roads, Not-So-Paradise Drivers
Here’s the thing. You wouldn’t expect a place nicknamed “the Aloha State” to lead a list like this, yet here we are. Hawaii was found to have the worst-behaved drivers according to a Forbes Advisor study analyzing 19 bad driving behaviors. That is not a small survey, either. The survey was conducted with the help of market research company Talker Research, and five thousand Americans were surveyed for the study.
The specific numbers out of Hawaii are genuinely shocking. A notable portion of Hawaiian respondents admitted to changing lanes or turning without signaling, and others admitted to speeding 20 miles per hour or more over the speed limit. Honestly, the irony of road rage in one of the world’s most beautiful places is almost poetic. The behaviors tracked included running a red light, eating while driving, texting behind the wheel, changing lanes without signaling, cutting other drivers off, and honking or cursing at other drivers in anger.
2. Oregon: Wet Roads and a Worse Attitude
Oregon’s drivers rank worst for refusing to yield to others and speeding in a school zone, with those behaviors found among a measurable share of respondents. Refusing to yield in a school zone is not just rude, it is genuinely dangerous. Oregon also suffers from a compounding urban problem. Portland sits at number 10 on Forbes Advisor’s ranking of the worst U.S. cities to drive in, dragged down by heavy rainfall and sluggish rush-hour traffic.
Stress and congestion are well-documented contributors to aggressive driving. Aggressive driving is commonly associated with frustration and stress, as well as time spent in traffic and a disregard for other drivers. That description fits Portland’s daily commute remarkably well. Close to half of Oregon drivers admitted to speeding less than 10 mph over the speed limit in the past month, which may sound minor in isolation but becomes a real problem when it’s that widespread.
3. Massachusetts: The Notorious Home of “Massholes”
Let’s be real. Nobody familiar with Boston driving is surprised by this one. LendingTree researchers analyzed tens of millions of insurance inquiries from November 2023 to November 2024, then used that data to determine the best and worst drivers by state. The result? According to the LendingTree report, Massachusetts had the worst overall driver incident rate among all states and the District of Columbia.
The study zeroed in on four categories: accidents, DUIs, speeding-related incidents, and general citations, which include improper passing, operating a vehicle without insurance, failure to signal, and failure to yield to others. Massachusetts ranked at the top across enough of those categories to claim the overall crown. It’s hard to say for sure whether Boston’s notoriously confusing road layout contributes to the tension, but the numbers do not lie.
4. New Mexico: Distracted, Dangerous, and Aggressive
New Mexico has the highest number of fatal car accidents involving a distracted driver, according to data analyzed by Forbes Advisor. That is a specific and grim distinction. A recent survey found that New Mexico was among the states with the worst-behaved drivers in the U.S. The distracted driving problem there is not just a numbers issue, it reflects a broader culture of inattention behind the wheel that shows up in fatality data over and over again.
Distracted driving is one of the clearest markers of rude and inconsiderate behavior on the road. Think about it as the equivalent of someone texting at the dinner table, just with much higher stakes. According to NHTSA data, aggressive driving accounts for roughly two thirds of traffic fatalities. New Mexico’s poor standing on distraction metrics feeds directly into those broader national tragedy numbers.
5. North Dakota: The Surprising Entry Nobody Expected
Nobody goes on a road trip expecting North Dakota to be the rudest driving state in the country. Yet the data makes a compelling case. North Dakota has the worst drivers in the U.S., with 64 incidents per 1,000 drivers in 2025 through September, based on LendingTree’s analysis of auto insurance inquiry data. That figure covers accidents, DUIs, speeding, and general citations combined. Most notably, North Dakota holds both the highest DUI rates and speeding-related incident rates in the country.
The open roads of the Great Plains might actually encourage riskier behavior. Think of it like a wide-open gymnasium with no referee in sight. States in the Southeast consistently rank poorly due to high percentages of uninsured drivers, while South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana have some of the highest DUI arrests per capita. Rude driving is not always about honking in traffic. Sometimes it shows up as simply not caring whether you’re fit to be behind the wheel at all.
The Bigger Picture: A Nation of Increasingly Aggressive Drivers
Zoom out from any single state and the national trend is genuinely alarming. A staggering 96% of drivers admitted to engaging in some form of aggressive driving in the last year, according to a study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. That is not a minority problem, that is almost everybody. Cutting off other vehicles is up 67%, and honking out of anger is up 47%, compared to baseline data from just a few years earlier.
Speeding resulted in nearly 11,800 casualties across the United States in 2023, accounting for close to 30% of all traffic deaths. That is not just a statistic, that is thousands of families. Studies show that the more drivers are exposed to aggressive behavior on the road, the more likely they are to drive aggressively themselves, fueling a self-fulfilling cycle where impatience and hostility become the norm behind the wheel. It’s like a contagion, and recognizing the worst-offending states is really just the first step in addressing it.
Which of these five states surprised you the most? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
