You must be new here.

No, people in this area can't drive. And god help you if it's raining or there's a 1/4 inch of snow.

Just blame the transient nature of our metro region.

Swag said:

novasteve said:

DC attracts like flies to sh*t personality disorder types who are incapable of being anything but self absorbed. That carries over into driving. The only thing worse than these sociopaths that crash are the rubberneckers.

I applaud novasteve for using himself as an example.

I'm a native so I could hardly be an example of a personality disorder type attracted to DC. In other words, I AM FROM HERE.

Depending on the how the study calculates bad traffic, DC is always at or near the top. Just a few months ago, a study put DC at the top for "worst" traffic. http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/new…..-us-092711

Sheer vehicle volume doesn't necessarily dictate traffic – it is also a factor of urban sprawl and number of roads available to get to the "work centers" such as Downtown and Tysons in our case.

That being said, Allstate recently released their "Best Drivers" report for 2011. It ranks the 200 most populous cities (unfortunately, it doesn't account for entire metro areas) and ranks them based on likelihood of getting into an accident. For some reason the highest (worst) ranking is 193. DC drivers won that competition for the second year in a row. Arlington and Alexandria were also listed in the report, coming in at 180/193 and 184/193, respectively. No DC area cities in MD were in the report. http://www.allstatenewsroom.co…..ing-cities

So, it appears the answer to the original question is "No, in general, people in DC cannot drive."

I got rear-ended once by some DoD guy who was reading his email while driving and not paying attention to pesky little distractions like traffic lights and stopped cars.

My parents got sideswiped and nearly flipped on 495 by a 20-something driving a rice rocket who cut across 3 lanes without doing things like not attempting to occupy the same time and space as a minivan. When the cops showed up, the driver tried to blame it on my parents and claimed they were the ones speeding and cutting through traffic. The cop he was talking to just stood there and stared at him for a solid two minutes and the guy confessed to driving while stupid.

Cate said:

Driving here really, truly makes me miss Boston.  The drivers there are aggressive, but not in their own world and aggressive like I've found them to be here.

 

Also – what is the deal with people driving with their headphones on????  Dangerous as hell, and what is the reluctance to just get an adapter or whatever to use your iPod through the stereo? 

I miss driving in Boston too… Everyone's a crazy driver there too, for the most part (heck, bumper to bumper traffic can be moving at 70 mph there), but we're at least predictable crazy. Or so this Masshole would like to think… It's the unpredictable people that are scary.

In DC, VA, and MD, it's illegal to drive with two headphones or earbuds – one is OK. DC adds the caveat that it's OK if it's for a cell phone. I agree – it's incredibly dangerous. It doesn't distract you any more than the radio would, but it makes it much more difficult to hear approaching emergency vehicles or the horn of another driver.

I grew up here and have watched it get worse and worse, my solution was to just by a car fast enough to avoid most situations.