Fresno is California's most dangerous city to drive due to drunk drivers, study says [The Fresno Bee]

Nov. 13—Fresno is the most dangerous city to drive in California due to the possibility of drunk drivers, according to an analysis by an auto insurance company.

BuyAutoInsurance.com rated Fresno as the ninth most dangerous city in the country and No. 1 in the state because of drunk driving, based on a three-year study of statistics provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI.

The analysis examined drinking while intoxicated arrests and population.

Fresno was the only city in California to land on the BuyAutoInsurance.com Top 10 list for most dangerous drunk driving cities in America.

Fresno registered an average of 648 DUI arrests annually per 100,000 residents, and an average of 1,148 DUI arrests per year.

San Diego ranked as the second most dangerous city in California (17th in the nation), averaging 371 DUI arrests per 100,000 residents and an annual average of 5,276.

Las Vegas ranked as the most lethal drunk driving city in the United States with an annual average of 1,986 DUI arrests per capita and 4,311 DUI arrests per year.

Because of Fresno's track record with DUIs, auto insurances often penalize those who end up convicted of DUI in Fresno with annual insurance costs jumping from $2,591 to $5,170 annually — one of the highest spikes for all cities when examining auto insurance data, according to the analysis.

Among the reasons Fresno and other cities in the top 10 rank so high is a lack of public transportation and a high prevalence of urban sprawl, meaning people need to drive more miles and have fewer options after drinking.

The study states that drunk driving is the leading cause of traffic fatalities in the country and accounts for 28% of all fatal car crashes in the U.S.

More than 10,000 people die each year in crashes related to DUI, the study added.

To determine the ranking of the 10 worst cities for drunk driving, researchers of the study collected DUI arrest data from 2017-2019 on the 30 most populous metros, except for New York City, which did not have city police department data available for DUI arrests.

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