ConsumerAffairs: State with worst roads in 2022 is Hawaiʻi

News Release from ConsumerAffairs, Dec 22, 2022

An analysis recently published by ConsumerAffairs found that the state with the bumpiest and potentially most dangerous roads for 2022 is Hawaiʻi.

The Aloha State was ranked second worst in 2021 by ConsumerAffairs, an independent, web-based news and resource center.

Hawaiʻi received a D-plus on the most recent Infrastructure Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers (released in 2019).

More than a quarter of Hawaiʻi’s urban roads come in at more than 170 inches per mile on the International Roughness Index (IRI), a measure of how much a vehicle vibrates based on the roughness of the road and how the wheel hits it.

Roads with an IRI at or above 170 inches per mile are considered in poor condition.

Hawaiʻi’s rural roads fared better, with 16% rated with poor pavement roughness compared to 26% for urban roads.

Other Americans have come to know these rough spots in the pavement well. In 2022, Hawaiʻi saw more than 70 million visitors from other states bumping along the islands’ twisty roads in buses and rental cars.

According to TRIP, a nonprofit that researches surface transportation, 69% of Hawaiʻi’s major roads are in “poor or mediocre” condition, and its drivers spend an average of $818 per person — $772 million total — a year on wear, additional fuel and repairs caused by driving on deteriorated roads.

ConsumerAffairs analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Federal Highway Administration and its own proprietary data to rank the best and worst road conditions for travel by state, according to the following criteria: Federal Highway Administration road quality, motor crash fatalities, amount spent per mile of road and vehicle miles traveled.

Following Hawaiʻi, the five worst-ranked states are Rhode Island, Louisiana, California and Wisconsin.

The analysis found the state with the best roads is New Hampshire, followed by Minnesota, Vermont, Alabama and Idaho.

According to ConsumerAffairs’ nationwide survey, the average driver gives the roads in their state a rating of just a 4.8 out of 10. Interestingly, even in states that rank well on paper for road quality, many survey respondents rated their roads as “terrible.”

To see where each state ranks in our study, see the table below or check out >>> full report.

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