In the Land of 10,000 Lakes you have some good drivers, but even more bad drivers. Minnesota regularly rates among the worst driving states in the country. According to QuoteWizard’s 2018 annual best and worst driver study, Minnesota came in at 6th worst in the country. That was actually an improvement from 2017 ranking of 2nd worst!
While the state is generally rated the worst, the Twin Cities are on the better side of driver quality recently. Minneapolis improved to 30th best driving city in 2019, up from 11th worst in 2018. There’s been an improvement in the last couple years, but there’s still a lot of bad driving happening in Minnesota. We here at QuoteWizard wanted to see where the worst of the worst are and where we can find some quality in the state
To determine overall driver quality in Minnesota, we studied drivers in Minnesota's 50 largest cities who used QuoteWizard.com to compare quotes. We then ranked cities by the highest rate of incidents. Incidents include accidents, speeding tickets, DUI’s and moving citations from that data.
Worst driving cities in Minnesota
| Rank (worst) | City |
|---|---|
| 1 | Minnetonka |
| 2 | Farmington |
| 3 | Hastings |
| 4 | Chanhassen |
| 5 | Prior Lake |
| 6 | Plymouth |
| 7 | Savage |
| 8 | Maplewood |
| 9 | Elk River |
| 10 | Rosemount |
| 11 | New Brighton |
| 12 | Shakopee |
| 13 | Mankato |
| 14 | Moorhead |
| 15 | St. Cloud |
| 16 | Shoreview |
| 17 | Burnsville |
| 18 | Owatonna |
| 19 | Rochester |
| 20 | Andover |
| 21 | Faribault |
| 22 | White Bear Lake |
| 23 | Bloomington |
| 24 | Eagan |
| 25 | Crystal |
Minnetonka
Right outside of the busy Twin Cities, you’ll find the worst drivers in the state. You’ll pass through Minnetonka driving west on I-394 and I-494. These busy highways are likely a big reason for Minnetonka having such a low rating of driver quality. When there’s more traffic on the roads there’s a greater chance for incidents to occur. While more traffic does equal more incidents this still doesn’t let the bad drivers of Minnetonka off the hook. Hennepin county accounted for only 3.59 road fatalities per 100,000 in 2017, one of the lowest marks in the country.
Farmington
Just south of the Twin Cities resides Farmington, the second worst drivers in Minnesota. Where as Minnetonka deals with a high rate of traffic, Farmington is quite the opposite. Not major highways in and out of town likely points to there being poor quality drivers in Farmington. Careful on the roads in Farmington passing through, because the folks there are after you on the roads. Dakota county had 2.61 road fatalities per 100,000 in 2017.
Hastings
Hastings appears to share the same poor quality of drivers with Farmington. All but highway 61 going through town, Hastings drivers are truly bad. After seeing Hastings and Farmington at two and three, I’m inclined to give Minnetonka a pass on their bad drivers. Washington county had 2.73 road fatalities per 100,000 people in 2017. It is reassuring the worst driving cities all reside in low fatality rate counties.
Best driving cities in Minnesota
| Rank (best) | City |
|---|---|
| 1 | Edina |
| 2 | Brooklyn Center |
| 3 | Brooklyn Park |
| 4 | Winona |
| 5 | Richfield |
| 6 | Blaine |
| 7 | Eden Prairie |
| 8 | Fridley |
| 9 | Minneapolis |
| 10 | St. Louis Park |
| 11 | Coon Rapids |
| 12 | Roseville |
| 13 | Duluth |
| 14 | Inver Grove Heights |
| 15 | Apple Valley |
| 16 | Oakdale |
| 17 | St. Paul |
| 18 | Chaska |
| 19 | Lakeville |
| 20 | Cottage Grove |
| 21 | Austin |
| 22 | Woodbury |
| 23 | Maple Grove |
| 24 | Ramsey |
| 25 | Champlin |
Edina
Funny how it works that the worst driving city neighbors the best driving city. To be fair there isn’t major interstates going through Edina. Maybe it really is a matter of more quality drivers in town. I figured letting Minnetonka off the hook for their bad driving was warranted, but if their next door neighbors in Edina are the best, then I’m not so sure. Hat’s off to Edina drivers and be careful of the bad drivers to the west of you.
Brooklyn Center
Similar characteristics to Edina, the suburban town of Brooklyn is home to the second best drivers. I-94 going thru town among a couple other highways, you have to give it up for the drivers in Brooklyn Center for being as quality as they are. Luckily Brooklyn Center’s neighbors to the north are also good drivers.
Brooklyn Park
The neighbors to the north of the Brooklyn Center, is the good drivers in the ‘Park’. It’s reassuring to know the neighboring Brooklyn cities share a quality mix of drivers that might be going from one place to the other. The same can’t be said for Edina.
Methodology
The QuoteWizard research team evaluated driver quality from the 50 largest cities in Minnesota by population. We analyzed 2018 data from tens of thousands of insurance quotes from Minnesota drivers using QuoteWizard to find the rate of overall incidents in each city. Incidents include accidents, speeding tickets, DUIs and moving citations
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