The best and worst states for drivers: See how each state measures up

How we ranked the states

From Bankrate.com, December 13, 2016 (excerpt)

To rank the best and worst states for drivers, we looked at a number of criteria to capture the overall experience of being behind the wheel in each state, including:

• Average commute times, from the census.
• Average annual auto insurance costs, from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
• Estimated average annual spending on fuel, using data from the Oil Price Information Service and the Department of Transportation.
• Average cost of a car repair, from CarMD.
• Rate of car thefts relative to population, from the FBI.
• Motor vehicle deaths relative to miles driven, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

For each state, we assigned a score of 0-10 on each of these criteria based on the data, then added them up to create overall scores, with 60 as the maximum.

The top states in our ranking are mostly concentrated in the Midwest and the Northeast and are generally less densely populated and have a lower cost of living than the states on the bottom. The bottom of the list is a bit of a mishmash: It includes Southern states like Florida and Louisiana as well as densely populated East Coast states.

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