The Best and Worst States and Cities for Car Owners

We promise, this is not a rerun! Although similar to a topic we covered a few months ago, we’ve shifted our focus from driving a car to car-ownership for this latest ranking of the best and worst states and cities.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. I and
welcome to Car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. We are
joining up as always with our super producer Tyler Plain
and boy howdy. I know I've said it in the past, Scott,

(00:24):
but you and I are pretty lucky to live in Atlanta,
Georgia as car enthusiasts. Do you think so? I think
we could do worse. I think we could too. I mean,
we see a lot of a lot of variety, right um,
primarily import cars. It's not really a lot of American
build cars down here. I mean you you noticed a
stark difference between like traveling from here to like Detroit,

(00:45):
where I've been several times in the past several months,
and uh, it's it's remarkable the difference in the type
of cars and trucks do you see on the road.
But yeah, we see a lot of exotics. We see, um, well,
a lot of cars that are good year round, which
is really nice. You know a lot of sports cars,
people driving convertibles practically year round all the time, motorcycles
year round. We're in a pretty good environment, really, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:06):
definitely definitely a good climate. Now, I will say the
summer gets a little rough for me. Man. I always
try to take whatever car i'm driving uh in just
for just for a check before the heat really sets in,
because you know, nothing worse than hot Atlanta summer and
no a c. Oh. Yeah, you gotta make sure that
a c is ice cold when it's when it's time

(01:27):
to use it. Yeah. So, I mean, I think we
do live in a great environment for for I guess
an not enthusiast really. I mean the roads are nice, right,
I mean, they wouldn't have to deal with the freeze
thought thing that they do up in the north as well.
That's that's true. And I hear the cops have finally
gotten a lead on whatever gang of miscreants it is
that goes around and puts those stupid metal sheets over

(01:51):
various arbitrary patches of road. Those are our main complaints.
I guess that congestion. So densely populated city, and I
think we're approaching seven million in the Gray to Atlanta
area or something like that. Somewhere near there. It's around
six or seven, but it's it's a lot to a
lot of people. And those are some of the you know,
statistics and some of the things that we're gonna site
today in our episode. And this is just to be

(02:12):
upfront with everybody, Uh, this is what's going on. We
we last time, our episode focused mainly on the ten
most expensive countries to buy and own a car. Right, okay,
So we we only got through these ten countries, and
we talked about it at the end of the episode,
where we were hoping to get to uh, the United
in the United States, the states and the cities that
were the best and worst to drive a car or

(02:33):
own a car. And then later on I was thinking,
wait a minute, this sounds really really familiar. So I
went back to my desk and I looked through my
huge pile of notes, and I found that we did
something very similar in August, I believe August nine. So
this very year we did a best worst cities to
drive in episode. Now here's the interesting thing about this,
I thought, well, I'll shoot, that kind of blows today's

(02:55):
topic out of the water. We've already done this, right.
Not so much the case because the last time that
we did this, it was again August. We followed a
brand new wallet hub study of wild wallet Hub analysis
of lots of different cities in United States, all the
major cities in the United States, and they did a
top one hundred, you know, from from best to worst
or worst to best what however you want to look
at it. And we covered the entire gamut of what

(03:19):
they look for in that study. I mean, like all
the criterias say so much stuff. A lot of it's understandable,
but they really drilled down to a point where some
of it seems, I don't know a little, it's like
they're overdoing it. You know, how many hot dogs stands
around every corner. No, No, they didn't do that. But
they did do car washes. Yes, they did car washes.
It was I mean there was there were three or

(03:40):
four main categories, is like cost of ownership and maintenance. Uh.
There was of course of traffic and infrastructure. There's safety,
access to vehicles and maintenance. And again things like you know,
car washers were there, car dealerships per capita. There was
quality of roads, quality of bridges. Um, no way I'm
gonna read all these men. There's there's a hundred of them,
it seems. But they were also um, auto maintenance costs

(04:02):
and and average car insurance premiums, and you know, things
like that were discussed. Now some of that is going
into today's study, the one that we're gonna read. It
has it again a completely different list for the best
cities for driving or best cities to own a car.
That's also one of the differences. The last time we
talked about it, it was the best and worst cities
to drive in. Now tell me if there's any difference here,

(04:24):
because I don't know if there really is. Today we're
gonna talk about the best and worst states and cities
to own a car. I argue that there is a
deceptively large difference because look, honestly, if you just, for
an example, Scott, if you were to purchase a car

(04:45):
in um a very car friendly state, and you were
to drive through California, you know, depending on the part
of California and you go through, you're not going to
run into a lot of the expenses you would have
were you to own a car in California. And there's
a very important difference in Oh, I get it, Okay, Yeah,

(05:06):
you're still gonna pay way more in gas than you're used.
So we're talking about taxes, we're talking about insurance PREMI okay,
all right, I get it, all right, So maybe that
is the difference, and we'll talk about, you know, what
makes each state in each city and a difficult for
car ownership or or really good for car ownership. And
I promise we'll get to that. But I do wanted to.
I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew this

(05:28):
that the last time we went through this list, the
best cities on the list, the list that we're gonna
have today is almost completely different. They only share one
common city. So if you go back and listen to
August nine episode, you're gonna be confused. But again, listen
to the entire list of of criteria that we had
for the best and worst cities last time, and it's
different than what we're gonna talk about today and now.

(05:50):
On the other hand, the worst cities for driving the
list is nearly the same. It's it only has three variations.
There are three different cities that are on this list
today that we're not on the previous list. You know
that that are substituted out for those and uh, I
don't even know if it's worth going through them. But
seven out of ten or the same on the worst list.
I would say it's probably best for us to either

(06:11):
laundry lists them or just point out the three newcomers. Yeah,
because it's the someone is listening to this show and
remembers our past episode and you thought you got away.
That's right. Yeah, but there's no safety in u in
waiting just a couple of months, especially when we've got
access to so many different lists. There's lists like this

(06:33):
out there everywhere. Now. I want to also point out,
just to be transparent about this, is that this list
that we're gonna go through today, These these two lists
that we're gonna talk about, the worst cities and the
worst states. Best and worst come from you know, about
a year prior sixteen, I could see, you know, I
want to Actually the states list comes from about two
thousand and eleven. I don't think this has changed all
that much because it does have a lot to do

(06:53):
with taxes, It has a lot to do with with
total cost of ownership, minor changes, so some of these
might be jockeyed around a little bit, but but really,
to me, one of the most interesting list is the
ten worst cities don't a car, And we'll follow that
up with the best cities as well, um, but but
I just think that it's kind of fascinating that you
can get so many different opinions from so many different places.
And again, it just has to deal with, you know,

(07:15):
the set of numbers that they're looking at. Everybody makes
the statistics work, either to their advantage or disadvantage. Oh yeah,
it reminds me of that old quote Mark Twain used
to throw around, and I don't think he's the actual
source of it. I think it was the British Prime
Minister Benjamin Disraeli said, Uh, there are three kinds of lies, lies,
damned lies, and statistics. So just keep that in mind. Sure, yeah,

(07:39):
I keep that in mind throughout this whole thing. Now,
but before we jump into today's topics as like as
I always like to do, Yeah, maybe we should have
a little bit of a chit chat about some things
that have happened recently, because um, only a couple of things,
all right, yeah, minor, but I but I thought, you know,
somewhat interesting, somewhat correlated, so I thought i'd bring this
up first. One is a real shocker. This happened to

(07:59):
me on Sunday night. I was I was taking my
kid to you know, Sunday evening teen thing at a
at a church, local church. It's a big, mega church
type place, you know. And uh, the week prior I
had had her in the parking lot there we were
practicing driving. It has this enormous parking lot and they
even have cones in a trailer that we can you know,
just kind of borrow for an hour or two to

(08:20):
to kind of set up in the parking lot for
for practice. Right, but I don't have to buy my
own cones for driving practice. So it's really interesting. So
it's fun, fun place to go. And you know, this
is all with their knowledge. They know you can do it.
Is she driving your car? She is, yes, driving my car.
It's going well, very well. She's actually very adept at it.
You're not doing that thing where you push the phantom break,
are you? No? No, No, I don't do that. She's

(08:41):
she's actually quite controlled. Really, it's it's it's impressive to
see her progress. What happened, Um, so here's what happened.
We were there and and you know, part of the
driveway was blocked off for for you know, it's like
almost like a main road that goes to the middle
of this thing. It's a big place, so we noticed
that it was it was blocked off, and you know,
we just kind of avoided it for that day, easy
enough to get around, and I didn't know what they

(09:01):
were doing is a little bit of light construction. So Sunday,
you know, this last Sunday, this is a week later. Um,
I'm driving through the parking lot. I'm a few minutes
later to pick her up, you know, which turned out
on to be a big deal. Everything was running late anyways,
But I'm going a little faster than I probably should
have through the parking lot and I found out what
the construction was and it was unmarked. So as I'm driving,
you know, I'm not going really really fast, but maybe

(09:23):
you know in a parking lot that's kind of quick.
You're doing like the the auto equivalent of power walking,
that's right, without that ridiculous arm and hip wiggle is
a ridiculous I was not doing that, but but I
was going probably a little bit too fast with parking lot,
I admit. But it's dark out of course, and suddenly
I hit this speed bump that was not there before.

(09:45):
And it's not one of those like little you know,
little bump speed bumps. This is where they know, elevate
a little bit of a sidewalk from curb to curb
on each side, so it becomes like one of those.
It's like a rise of not forty five, but you
know as steep angle rise and then a four or
five foot section for the sidewalk and then another drop
off on the other side. It's one of those. Uh.
I think they called him the speed hump or something
like that. I hit that stupid thing at about thirty

(10:08):
miles and I had no until I was midway through
the air. I think I didn't realize it, Like, I mean,
I didn't realize what was going on. I was just
like it appeared out of nowhere unintentionally, yes, And I
was super ticked off about it. I mean, there were
no markings. It was all brand new, um, you know.
And and man, I I was thinking, like, there's no

(10:28):
way I got through this without destroying something, destroying something.
I heard a little bit of scrape, you know, as
I hit the other side. It wasn't wasn't the front
bump or anything like that, but I mean, I think
it was in the air, just a tiny little bit
over that bump man, because isn't it. Aren't they legally
required to paint it or somehow it was somehow indicate

(10:51):
that it was sidewalk color. But it was a dark night,
you know, and I don't even know if it was
like I don't remember why it was so dark, and
it's maybe misty or something. I don't remember, but but
it just seemed like it just appeared out of nowhere
is your car? Okay, it seems like it's all right,
but I'm just so nervous right now, get under there, man,
Any little sound I hear now, I'm thinking like that,
that's a stupid bump that I hit right, And a

(11:13):
lot of times an undercarriage gets messed up or scraped,
even if it's just like the bottom bumper piece. What
can happen is that it will appear to drive normally
until you you know, until it wears down over time
and next thing, you know, maybe even like three weeks later.
I've seen it happen to people where they get on

(11:33):
the interstate, they get above let's say forty I'm not
I know, Ben, You're killing me. I'm sorry, man, but
it is worth checking because then you know, you might
have a piece fall off we've all seen that well thankfully.
I mean I've been on the highway at highway speeds
and I think it's okay, there's no shake or anything
like that, and surprisingly it turns well, it doesn't make
any noises or anything like that. So I was more
concerned about maybe, you know, accidentally knocking off the dream

(11:56):
plug for my crank case or something like that. You know,
this I was. I was worried that I was gonna
lose is all the oil all over the parking lot
right there or something like that would happen, A cool
and hose would break or something. So it seems like
everything's worked out. Okay, I'll keep updated, yeah, please do okay,
and this last one, I will make this one quick.
But this is something absolutely ridiculous that I saw on

(12:16):
one of my recent trips up north. Alright, so I'm
stopped at a gas station, you know, I'm just fueling
up and going to get a soft drink or something
that came back out, and there's a guy that is
kind of messing around with this car that's on a trailer.
And it's one of those toe Dolly trailers. So it's
you know, two wheels up, two wheels down in the back.
It's told behind a pickup truck. It's an older Dodge Stratus.

(12:37):
It was like a light green, kind of like a
missed green color. And it was clearly like a salvage car,
you know, a wrecked car, you know, so missing pieces
and things like that. This car Ben was on four
space savers spare tires four and I've never, I've never
ever in my life seen a car on four Space
Saver spars and he's he's towing it down the road

(12:59):
like that. Now, if it was four wheeled down, it
would look even more ridiculous. It already looked ridiculous on
this trailer. I I have thought about that, but I
don't think I've ever seen that in real life. And
the reason you all heard my delayed reaction out there,
friends and neighbors, is because I thought I would have
a moment to sip some coffee away from the microphone.

(13:21):
That was nearly a spit take moment there. That was
that was yeah for space savers, So those real thin
little ones and the ones that are undersized, and they
had you know, there's a variety on this car. Clearly,
it's like just trying to get it from one Junkyard
to the next. Junkyard doesn't have a matching set. No,
it's not a match not a matching said. It didn't

(13:41):
even look like a good set of four you know,
space saver spares. It was just it was a ridiculous look.
And some had the big yellow sticker on the side
the burns. You don't go over what something, or over
a particular amount of miles. I mean, I never saw
it on the road. He was he you know, of
course are the times that we were passing. He was
in the gas station. I wasn't on the street with

(14:03):
him at any point, but um, yeah, we're going down.
I mean that's son five was the main road right there.
I'm hoping that he was staying, you know, on the
smaller roads, you know, not on the on the main highway.
But ridiculous it was. It was just absolutely ridiculous to
see this car with four space air spars. I mean,
that's insane and I I'm so curious to hear the

(14:24):
story of that car. Did the Stratus look beat up?
Did it look like a junk yard? Was terrible? Yeah,
it's missing pieces. It was that looked like, you know,
had been in several accidents. It was just scrap metal.
You know, there was there was a um, you know,
the ink pen riding on the windows, and you know
it was definitely it was destined for the shredder. Possibly,
so somebody at the yard probably just tossed those tires on. Yeah, sure,

(14:46):
wall of spars because they were gonna try to resell
any worthwhile tires, yeah, or components or whatever. Yeah right,
They're probably nabbed the tires for something else. And then
they had, you know, these four random tires laying around.
It fits, so they just put those on. Let's just
do what you can with it, you know. Yeah, And
this brings us to a very important moral that people

(15:10):
don't say often enough. If you have a car that
has a spare tire in the trunk, it doesn't it
doesn't take very long at all, as long as your
trunk is relatively clean before you hop in and drive. Today,
whenever you're listening to this, go ahead and open the trunk,
just check on your spare tire. Yeah, you know, that's
a good that's a good lesson. Because you remember when

(15:31):
we left for the road rally, uh with Rally North
America last year, I checked the spare right before we left,
zero pounds of pressure in it someone who had not
inflated the spare tire, and it's supposed to have like
an excessive amount of pressure, an extra amount of air pressure.
And uh so I corrected that right away before the trip.
I felt a lot better about it. Now. I haven't

(15:51):
checked it recently, so I don't know if it's back
down again. But um, it's not unusual to see people
on the side of the road with a bad spare.
You know they've got no air in tire, or you
know it's it's down because it's cold weather or something
like that. You know that's not good as well. And
not to be all commudgedly about it, but it seems
like I've noticed. I'm relatively young, but I've I've noticed
that even over my time as a driver, people are

(16:14):
less and less likely to stop and help a stranded motorist.
We've just heard too much stuff about what can go
wrong or how it can be a col Well, right now,
it's a lot easier just to make a phone call
with your with your cell phone as you pass and
alert somebody to where the troubles happening, and then allow
you know the authorities or the uh you know, the
Hero cruise, you know, the highway road assistance guys, Highway

(16:37):
Emergency road something like that. Hero that's what they call
them here. There's there are different things in different cities,
I know, but um, yeah, it's just easier to let
them with, you know, their compressors, and they're uh, they
probably even carry a spare tire just for that situation.
Would gallon of gas that kind of thing, Yeah, gallon
and gas. Probably spare tire. Definitely copious amounts of fix

(16:57):
of flat. Which all so, if you happen to check
your trunk and you are one of those lucky car
owners who has a can of fix a flat instead
of a spare tire mini electric compressor, right, and uh,
consider getting a different car. I'm just gonna say it,

(17:18):
all right, all right, well I think we've we've we've
wasted enough time here at the beginning, But but those
are interesting. Wasn't a wasted time? Okay? Sometimes I wonder
I didn't mean to Uh, I didn't mean to get
into your head about some kind of disastrous highway driving thing.
And it sounds like your car is fine. Well, maybe
I'm gonna have to really put it through its test now.

(17:38):
But but I'm gonna be cautious for the next few months.
Maybe Yeah, and I go ahead and go ahead and uh,
you know, just get a lawsuit to the church anyway,
do like emotional distress, So I'm not the litigating type. Yeah,
I'm on the same page where you they are, right,
But be that as it may. Uh, when we're talking

(18:00):
about emotional distress, Uh, Scott, do you wanna tell us
some of the worst places to own a car here
in the United States? Let me just come right out
and just say the worst states. We just do it,
and I will and we'll get to the y in
just a moment. But but let's just start with the best.
How about that. Let's start positive here. So yeah, the
best states according to edmonds dot Com is New Hampshire,

(18:24):
be'st number one, South Dakota, and South Carolina. Those are
the top three, which doesn't necessarily match up with our
list last time. As as I mentioned, now, we're just
talking about states, You're not cities just yet. The most
most expensive states to own a car, we kind of
talked about that already, right. They have them listed as Hawaii,
number one, California and then Alaska. Now California is kind

(18:48):
of the outlier in this, right, you would think that
the distant locations of Hawaii and Alaska would make sense, right.
And additionally, I mean why it makes sense just because
it's an island. Everything has to be imported, So gas
is going to be more expensive, parking is going to
be tight. I'm sure that, going back to our earlier conversation,

(19:09):
the fees and the insurance are going to be much higher.
Alaska makes sense not just because of distance, and maybe
not even just because of gas prices, but because the
weather is so punishing. You know, you're looking at a
much more frequent maintenance cycle and a relatively sparse population,

(19:30):
which means that you're typically having to take a vehicle
of farther a further distance further distance for any type
of repairs or maintenance things like that. You know, it's
not that it's not that everybody's gonna live right in
the same small town and have you know that easy
option like we often do here in the in the
lower forty eight or elsewhere around the world, I guess
for that matter. All Right, So the idea is that

(19:51):
you know, if you bought a car in Alaska, or Hawaii.
You'd expect it to cost more if you bought it
like in you know, like a Midwestern state, you know,
Michigan or Ohio. But of course, one of the reasons
I guess we have to talk about it is freight cost,
you know, getting the vehicle to you know, to that location,
a brand new vehicle. That's one thing. But the gas
prices are higher in different states, and you also expect

(20:11):
um the car is to cost more in the long run.
But here's the question, ben, this is the main question
in this in this this article from Forbes. It comes
from Forbes dot com. By the way, why should it
cost this is this is an unbelievable number. Why should
it cost nine thousand dollars more to own and operate
a car in Connecticut than it does in New Hampshire,
which is just one hundred or so miles up the road.

(20:34):
Nine thousand more And you could just go, if you
just were to live, you know, one hundred miles down
the road in New Hampshire, you would have a nine
thousand dollar cheaper burden from that vehicle. I don't know
if that's the best way to say it or not,
but this all comes from um Edmands dot com. They
have kind of a proprietary formula that they have called
the True Cost own and I guess you can call

(20:55):
it the total cost of ownership or whatever, but they
call it the official True cost own And in that formula,
I mean, well, here's you have to understand this too.
New Hampshire has no sales tax, all right, so so
that right away is a is a huge benefit um.
The cost of everything from insurance to to fuel and
maintenance is also lower there. So imagine if you bought
a twenty nine thousand dollar car that would end up

(21:17):
costing you forty nine thousand, eight hundred ninety dollars in
this true cost own UM formula over five years if
you live in Connecticut. But if you lived in New Hampshire,
you know, with the again no sales tax and you know,
cheaper fuel, cheaper maintenance, everything insurance, that same vehicle will
only cost you forty thousand, six hundred and two dollars.
So just a hundred miles away. But you can't just

(21:40):
you can't, you know, say that, say that you you
live in um, Connecticut, you can't just drive to New
Hampshire and by the car and expect the same thing
to happen because you've got your own states, taxes and
insurance and gas and all that. I mean, it's not
practical to do everything a hundred miles away, or to
even have a separate a separate address, you know, for
stuff like this. I mean that's a little bit you know,

(22:01):
I don't know, that's it's a little cheating. That's a
gray area. Oh yes, people do it, I know, but um,
you know you probably should. People do that for stuff
like you know, in in state tuition, you know, things
like that, or school, you know, just going to uh
an elementary school, they claim that they live in a
different district, second cousins address or something. Yeah, yeah, the

(22:21):
O box or something, you know, right, that's pretty common,
it used to be. I think there's I think more
authorities are aware of the PO box trick, you know.
But the truth is, you're not going to drive one
hundred miles to let's say they have your car serviced,
you know, if you can have it serviced in your
own hometown. I mean, sure, it sounds like it sounds
like a smart thing to do. I mean to take
you half a day to do it, but uh, you know,

(22:43):
to save a pile of money on maintenance. But really,
when it comes down to it, your time is probably
worth more than that. Just to stay in town and
have it done there. It's a little more expensive, but
that's just the way it works out. But that's the thing.
I would say, it's a smart thing to tell someone
else to do, but like a lot of advice, I
probably wouldn't do it. We'll be glad to tell someone

(23:03):
to do it. Yeah. Sure. And and and of course you
know the heavy costs come in, you know, with the
the adding of sales tax and the insurance which is higher. Um,
you know the fuel costs, which you're higher. You know,
you don't want to drive. You can't drive a hundred
miles to buy fuel. That's totally impractical too. So, um,
there's a lot of good reasons why this list is
the way it is. So. Um. You know, the prices,

(23:24):
as we said, they very state by state, and there's
also regional incentives like that, you know, for destination and
freight charges they vary from the distance the car has
to be shipped. Now you might be surprised to learn that,
you know, cars in Detroit are they often have shipping costs,
but they're not nearly as much as it would be
if you were to ship a car to Alaska. Let's say,

(23:44):
I mean, or but let's say car as an import
it's coming from overseas. Of course it's going to be
a higher shipping shot cost shipping fee than a car
that arrives from you know, something that's built in Mexico
or something that is built in um, I don't know,
Minnesota or wherever, right wherever these are, these assembly factories are.
So I guess we need to talk about this formula

(24:05):
just a little bit. Yeah, the true cost of Oh, yes, exactly.
So this formula takes note of where you live and
it calculates your average five year costs for depreciation, financing, taxes, fees, insurance, premium,
fuel costs, maintenance and repairs on a range of all
like new and used vehicles. So you can go to
Edmunds dot com and and check out this calculator that

(24:26):
they have and it will tell you what it costs
to own a vehicle for five years based on all
these factors. But you have to include a bunch of
not a bunch, but a certain amount of personal information
just the state and city that you live in. It's
not anything really, you know, you don't have to give
him your social your phone number, anything like that. Um.
The Edvans analysts come up with a series of weighted

(24:46):
averages by state, and that's how they determine, you know,
what the best and worst states are. Now we've told
you the best ones are in New Hampshire, South Dakota,
and South Carolina. UM, Hawaii, California, and Alaska are the
most expensive, with Hawaii being the number one most expensive state.
But the gap this is really interesting. The gap between
the cheapest state, which is of course New Hampshire, and
then the most expensive, which is hawaiis she's thirteen thousand

(25:07):
dollars is the average gap, right? And the weird thing is,
although that's the most extreme version, there's a disturbing amount
of variation state to state, and it's all it all
goes back to taxes, fees, costs of insurance. So in Oregon,
for instance, or Oregon, which is apparently the way I'm

(25:30):
supposed to be pronouncing this, I don't know how I
used to live in a I'd say Oregon, Ohio. Oh
he was right outside of Toledo. Yeah. But but when
I say Oregon, I get you know, the raised eyebrows
from the guy here in the office that was from
the state of Oregon. Yeah, but that's the guy who
also says Oregon. What is this? Is it like his

(25:51):
word tomato? Tomato? Sure, but tomato obviously. So just right
in and let me know if you are, if you
are a resident of Oregon or Oregon, tell me how
you prefer it to be. Let's use them interchangeably here,
let's do it. Okay, let's let's switch it up. So
point being if you live in that state, if you

(26:13):
live in Oregon, you will pay an average of just
a hundred and twenty nine dollars in fees yearly. But
in Arizona, if with all other factors being the same,
you're looking an average of four thousand, three hundred and
forty six dollars in fees. Huge difference there, I mean

(26:33):
really big difference. So that the insurance, if you look
at the insurance numbers, is cheapest in South Dakota with
about four thousand, seven and twenty three dollars because there
there are no other cars to hit, right, Yes, that
might be the case, Yeah, something like that. And the
most expensive state to ensure a car is Alaska. Again,
believe it or not, about in an average of about

(26:54):
eleven thousand four. That's what always startles me. I know,
what makes it makes sense when we think about it. Uh, now,
these are five year totals. These are five Yes, that
is true. That is not That is not a they're
you're not getting hit up for twelve dollars every year. No, no, no,

(27:14):
But to the point, it seems strange to me that
Alaska is such an expensive state to live in. I know,
the math makes sense, and the geography makes sense, and
it does work out, but I just always expected it
to be a state that was hungry for people to
live there, you know. And if you want people to

(27:38):
move to a state, shouldn't you try to lower those
fees give a little incentive? Right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, what
the whistle? You know? Yeah, I mean it's not just
for corporate or corporations, right, I mean it should offer
some of that to to citizens as well. Yeah. And
the this problem is not just restricted to those states
we named In West Virginia and Louisiana, Uh, five years

(28:01):
of insurance also runs you about eleven grand, but a
lot cheaper if you're here in Georgia or North Dakota
where you pay about half of that amount. So half
of that amount. That's crazy, isn't it. Yes, I mean
you pay more for UH for insurance, and depending on
which state you live in, and some of these states
are close. And then labor rates for service technicians can

(28:23):
vary as well. So your local mechanic, again, all other
things being the same, except for the state in which
you live, your local mechanic may have a different rate
for the exact same UH fix, the exact same repair.
And we also have to take into consideration some of
the states that have no sales tax. There's a lot
of states that have no sales tax, so that means

(28:44):
that parts cost less right up front. Yeah, absolutely, And
we don't have to get to two bogged down in this.
You can kind of see where you can kind of
see the snowball effect. You just see where this is going. Uh.
This sort of stuff also impacts, for instance, a car loan.

(29:04):
So if you go to UH crazy super Producer Tyler's
New and Used Mustangs and you go to the one
in New Hampshire, you're gonna get a better deal than
you would if you went to the one in Arizona.
This is a National franchise. By the way, national friend,
I get you. I didn't know that he was. He
was quite the the used car Barren, Oh new and

(29:25):
used car Barren is they're new when you buy them,
they're used when they leave the lot, keeping a secret
from us. I guess. So yeah. I mean you pay
higher sales tax and more interest on your car loan
if you buy a more expensive vehicle. I mean it
makes sense, right, I mean all this really is pretty
pretty pretty straightforward stuff. I mean, you know that prices

(29:45):
are different. You know, like, let's say that you've been
on a long road trip and you notice that, you know,
as you crossed the state line, suddenly gases fifty cents
more a gallon. That happens all the time, and you think,
what the heck is a deal around? You know, around
my hometown, I'm paying makes something up to fifteen a gallon,
and I get up here, you know, to the Northern States,
and it's to eighty five agallon? What gets? Why? Why

(30:05):
is that? But that's not just it's not just the
gasoline that they're paying more for there also sometimes it
depends on the city, I guess, you know, if it's
you live in a in a big metro area that
has high crime rate, theft, you know, etcetera, um, vandalism, whatever.
You're gonna pay more for insurance just because of your
zip code then than if you live outside of that city.
You don't a small suburb that's you know, four or

(30:26):
fifty miles north of there, or in a completely different state.
We're talking about states so far. We're gonna get the
cities very soon. But let's do that after the first
break from our sponsor. And here's where it gets even stranger.
I have this obsession with the bizarre statistics we discover

(30:48):
whatever we look into, you know, the best or worst
place drive, the amount of car accidents, the amount of thefts, uh,
the you know, the ease or difficulty of navigating through traffic.
And you and I have found some some pretty interesting
stuff here. There's there's this weird contradiction between the best

(31:15):
cities to live in. You know, you'll see numerous studies
on that every it seems like, every other month. But
the best cities to live in often turn out to
be some of the worst cities to own a car,
Isn't it strange? I was noticing the exact same thing
as we went through here because some of these are earmarked.
As you know, it's the ninth best place according to

(31:36):
U S News and World Report. That's who we're following
here in this um. In this list, the ten worst
cities don't a car, and we'll follow it up with
best cities. But uh, yeah, it's weird that the worst
cities to own a car are oftentimes the best places
to live. And it just seems like a strange mix.
But I guess they don't really have to be in
the same column, you know, I mean they don't have
to be. I mean a lot a lot of times

(31:56):
we'll find the public train they in all of these
they'll give us an alternate, like a public transportation version,
or a lot of people bike or you know, walk
or whatever. But well we'll mention that along the way too.
So if you're not necessarily someone who feels like you
have to own a car and and these cities, you
probably shouldn't. Uh, there's an alternate, or there always an alternate.
So one example of this would be Washington, d C.

(32:22):
According to several rankings, it's it's often in the top
ten best places to live lists, right, But if you
live there or even in the DC area, you're going
to have terrible, horrific traffic. If you ever been to DC,
you have been to DC and you sat in that traffic,

(32:42):
you know exactly what they're talking about. It it says
they put it in this article in Raging traffic, and
you're gonna have to sit there twice a day if
you commute. Uh, you know, hardly anybody lives in downtown
d C. Really, Um, you always commute from the suburbs,
and and we're you know, right in the outside outline
area there, I guess. So even even just those short distances,
the short drives, you're gonna be in the car for

(33:02):
a long time. Um. I don't think we want to,
you know, quote commute times for every single one of
these cities as we go through. But uh, the average
one way commute time in Washington, d C Is thirty
four point three minutes, which is among the longest of
any US city. So, uh, they get worse from here,
I guess, but it's not necessarily the worst, if you

(33:23):
want to put it that way. So these long commute times,
it's one factor. Gas is expensive, insurance is expensive. Um,
it seems like repairs are are expensive as well, accidents
are more common. You can verify that too, because one
of the old one of the old things I used
to hear about d C often was when my friends

(33:45):
who were in the area because they worked for the
FEDS or something, they would say, DC is the most
dangerous place I've driven because so many people here have
diplomatic immunity. Drive with the free will just whatever that
I gotta say. I wonder if there's some truth in that.
I can't verify that at all. Pret will Did I
use that? Right? I don't know. I guess just drive

(34:08):
not recklessly, but with abandoned. How about that, right, that's
a better way to say about drive with abandoned. The
embassy can give me another link it I'm gonna triple
park this car on the curb and it'll be fine.
It's it is pretty it is pretty insane. I actually
there's some amazing beautiful places outside of DC. But in

(34:29):
d C, I I rarely say this. I would typically
prefer a cab. Yeah, yeah, I I if I had
nothing to do for a day, I would enjoy driving
around parts of New York. But if I had nothing
to do for a day in d C, I would
probably just hop on a cab because those those streets

(34:52):
are insane. Man. Well we told you we would suggest
alternates for each one of these. It's a cab, I
guess would be one of them. Of course you can
take a cab, but that adds up. They suggest get
this biking, which I don't think I would adventure out
onto those roads and on a bike. I mean I've
been I've been there. Um, and or bus or you know,
Chris is a train there as well. They have a
Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. You know, if I guess both

(35:15):
bus and train, that's who runs that one. So um,
I don't know. You've got a couple of options there.
But again, biking, I don't think that's maybe your best option.
I just everybody, I just don't feel it now. I
mean think it's a little bit too dangerous. That's the
way I am. I don't like seeing bikes in traffic.
It's hard. Oh yeah, yeah, it just seems like it's
a bad fit. Um all right. Next one, Philadelphia. Yes, Philadelphia,

(35:41):
home to the Liberty Bell, former capital of the United States,
named the City of Brotherly Love. Word is still out
on whether that is like ironic or sincere nickname. And
it's just any way you look at it, it's not
the best place to own a car. No, no, no,
So insurance is expensive. Ass is expensive. They've got high taxes.

(36:02):
So you notice in a trend here. I mean, it
seems like in every one of these so far, you know, insurance,
gas repairs, you know, maintenance, that kind of thing. Um.
Slow commute times, very slow commute times, nearly as slow
as Washington, d C. But just a little bit quicker. Um.
Very little parking. That's another factor that's that's big is
that it's a congested city, densely populated of course, especially

(36:23):
at certain times a day when people you know, come
into the city for work and then you know, I
guess while they're there all day. Um, very little parking
is available. And um. They do offer a couple of alternatives, ZOE,
A lot like Washington, d C. A lot like all
of the other cities that we're gonna talk to talk
to you about. Um. They suggest that they have, you know,
a light rail system that's pretty good. They have a
bus bus transit system that's pretty good. And also this

(36:46):
is a somewhat unique for this city. They say it's walkable,
very very walkable right once you're in the I guess
the downtown or major city center areas. That's the problem.
You have to get down town first. So if you
don't live there, um, you know, if you if you
live just outside, you have to come in for work
or whatever. You need some way to get in, so

(37:06):
you're probably gonna take the bus in. But once you're
there you can then walk around. Um, maybe maybe this
list is talking about, you know, people that actually live
in Philadelphia proper. Yeah. Perhaps, I mean, you don't need
a car necessarily, it's if it's a walkable city. Yeah,
full disclosure. I haven't not visited Philadelphia yet, but I'm
probably going to be up there in spring, and I

(37:26):
think spring or summer. Yeah. I got some friends who
are um moving up Philadelphia Way and they invited me.
They invited me to drop by, and they're like, well,
you know, I'm thrifty Scott. So my question was, is
there a place I can crash or do I you know,
need to get a tell room. So I'm looking forward to,
uh the drive up there. I would always rather drive

(37:49):
if I have the time, you know, So we'll see.
You can save that hotel money for cheesesteaks. Yeah, and
apparently parking spaces, we'll see if I can find one. Well,
that's good, keep us, keep us up to date on that.
If I you know, you like it, you don't like it,
you enjoyed walking around the city because it's walkable, right right, supposedly,
of course, I'm you know, I'm asking, and I want

(38:12):
to hear from you about this, folks, anybody familiar with
Philadelphia currently residing in it. I would love to hear
your advice, because my friend is moving back up there.
Weirdly enough, all he does is complain about the city
and then he says it's awesome. I think everybody does
that about their own city a little bit, right, right, Yeah,
I can't rag on it. I can't even agree with

(38:34):
him when he's you know, uh, well we're a family show,
let's say, when he's wingin and moaning about it. But
but this, this is another common thing parking In the
case of d C as well, I hated having to
find a place to put a car that was almost

(38:55):
as bad as the traffic because Washington, d C. Has
some of the most cartoonishly intricate parking rules, and they're
displayed on these signs that change, and you have to
like stand out there and sort of try to interpret
what they mean. You're watch to determine what time it
is because it's changing in half an hour, right right. Uh.

(39:19):
And our next city on the list is going to
be no surprise to anybody, and that is New York City,
New York City. Sorry, I couldn't resist one of the
best commercials. I nobody remembers that. That's you know, the
last ten or so episodes, we've said that twice. Now,
that commercial got me eating salsa. Point being long commute times.
Of course, as you can imagine, we're talking about downtown

(39:40):
New York City, probably Manhattan. And I know that they're
gonna mention, you know, the the other the other boroughs,
you know, Brooklyn, Queen's, Bronx, etcetera. But um, I think
primarily we're talking about downtown New York Manhattan area. Right.
So everything's expensive. All the stuff we've mentioned before is
higher than the national average, high taxes, high end insurance premiums.

(40:01):
You've had expensive gas, you got very little parking, long commutes,
long commutes, you know, because I mean I've heard tales
of cars that you know, they say they're in gridlock,
and we we think we're in gridlock, right, I mean
we do roll ten feet and then wave. In Manhattan,
you might roll the distance of like, you know, one
rotation of your tire and then wait, and then you
get mobbed by twenty people just running out in the street.

(40:23):
Because another thing that New York has above, far above
the national average, is a wealth of people as an
extremely high population density, and a lot of those folks
maybe tourists who are not practicing crosswalk rules. I mean,

(40:44):
what am I saying? Man, Last time I was in
New York, I was totally jaywalking left and right. It
was very it was like a mad Max kind of situation,
because it's what you do there. Everybody does that there.
I mean I've been there too. It seems like it's
a it's it's chaotic really at times, right. Yeah, And
the cab drivers have made their peace with life, and
they are not They're not afraid of what comes after,

(41:07):
you know what I mean. It's just it's a blood sport, dude.
I've been in some pretty I've been in some cabs
in some pretty rough areas and even in a nice
part of New York and downtown Manhattan. You know, this
guy is driving, is making casual conversation with me, uh,
while he's swerving across four lanes and traffic. You know,

(41:30):
it's it's bad news. I would be interested to see
one day. I'm gonna one day, I'm gonna nail down
some pretty solid stats on cab drivers and accident rates.
Good luck. I think they keep those covered up a
little bit. They probably would. They probably have to, Alright.
So you know one thing that this kind of all
feeds into, and we haven't really even discussed us yet. Yeah,

(41:50):
stress driver stress plays a huge role in uh, you know,
whether it's city is good to driving, or whether it's
bad to driving, or whether you know you to own
a car. I guess if you want to take on
the stress of commuting in a city every single day, Um,
you know that's something that's not for everybody. Some people
just can't take it. You know. It leads to road rage,

(42:11):
it leads to just anxiety in general. You know, I
hear you're nervous about where you're gonna park when you
get downtown. You're nervous about, um, leaving the car alone.
If there's a lot of theft and vandalism, in area. UM,
stress is a huge part of this whole factor. So,
you know, very stressful driving in the city. Again we
said high population density. That's another thing is that you're
constantly your heads on a swivel looking for you know,

(42:33):
somebody walking in front of you, somebody biking, you know,
kind of split in the lanes between you in the
next car. Um. It's a stressful situation. But they do
suggest there are alternatives. Of course. One of the suggestions
are one of the maybe the one of the best
suggestions in New York City is the subway. I mean,
everybody knows about the New York Subway. It's it's a
complex system, twenty one lines. Yeah, I mean it's a

(42:53):
it's a large, large system. You can get to just
about anywhere you need to within the city via subway,
and then you know short walking distance. Uh. They have
other options to They have regular trains. Uh. They have ferry,
a ferry that operates, of course, um from Staten Island
to Manhattan. Yes, I've taken that very by as a
matter of fact, just as a sightseeing thing. It wasn't
really it wasn't trying to get anywhere. You weren't going

(43:15):
to work no, no, no. But they also suggest again
again with the biking. Why do they have to say
it biking? I just think it's a dangerous situation to
put yourself into a New York city biking. But I
know a lot of people do it. But but bike
couriers have more success in traffic. Checkout video tapes, you know,
video tapes, video recordings. How about that that's better, right,

(43:35):
video recordings of some bike messengers in downtown New York,
like Manhattan area. It's pretty crazy. Let's stay on the
Eastern seaboard as we visit the next city that I
completely agree should be on this list and should never
leave because part of me is still stranded trying to
drive through the big dig That's right, folks. Boston another

(43:57):
major city that makes things terrible for drivers because you
see Boston, Boston was a booming metropolis before the era
of automobiles. So these are in many cases, these are
streets designed for pedestrians and horses and carriages. Yeah, you

(44:18):
got the old time carriages of wagons going through the town, right,
And it really didn't matter if it was laid out
in a in an efficient grid like pattern, you know,
north and south. Um, you know east and west. It
wasn't laid out in a manner that a lot of
modern cities are laid out in a more logical way.
There's no grid, no north south kind of grid like
Scott's mentioning. Instead what happens. And they had twisty, windy

(44:40):
roads in the city that that will just sometimes just end,
they'll end in another road and you don't know where
to go from that point unless you are really familiar
with the city. It's very complicated, very confusing. It reminds
me a little bit of the Winchester Mansion, you know
that where uh, the widow of the guy who invented
the Winchester rifle believe she had to make this crazy

(45:02):
mansion for all the people who died due to the
Winchester rifle. And there are stairs that just don't go
anywhere that I saw. There's a there's a movie poster.
I want to see a movie recently, and there's a
movie poster for a movie about the Winchester Mansion. Oh wow, Yeah,
and I guess the sequel is going to be The
Roads of Boston. Yeah right right, But anyways, watched for

(45:23):
that coming soon, so um oh yeah, So they have
this difficult road layout. I mean, it's not a north
to south orient a grid like you might expect insurance
as expensive as you would guess in that type of
city because you you've been there, so you know, I
was there one evening. I didn't know, we've talked about this,
is there one evening, just kind of stopped in to
have dinner on my way through there to somewhere else

(45:44):
and picked the wrong time as a rush hour. UM,
I don't know if I've ever been that close to
other vehicles for as long as you know, outside of
leaving maybe like a sporting event right where there's really
no lanes it seems, and you could reach out and
touch the glass of the car. I swear to you,
like we weren't in lanes, and everyone was like a

(46:05):
foot off of your car in all directions, you know, front, back,
left side, right side, all way around, and you're just
trying to get, you know, to a parking spoite, you're
trying to get into parking structure or wherever park outside
of the hopefully within the block of the restaurant that
you're trying to get to. Um, it's just it's a
it was a really difficult uh, time to be there,
and I know that you've had even more frustration when

(46:25):
you went through that that big dig construction project. We've
talked about that that was rough. I don't want to
I don't want to have to hive you want to
relive it? No, no, not that. But I do want
to give a little bit of good news about Boston
after a word from our sponsors. All right, here's what

(46:47):
I think of as good news about Boston. The average
commute time is just under thirty minutes, which is way
lower than I thought it would be, and that's probably
because I was there during extensive construction. That was probably
a yeah. But there's more good news Ben. They suggest
that if you if you don't want to drive, you
don't want to jump in the car every day and

(47:08):
try to make that commute. They have a Boston subway system,
but it's also a very old system, I guess, kind
of an older underground rail system. Um. They do suggest walking,
but because the winters they're so brutal, it's not a
possibility all of the time. You don't want to rely
on being able to walk, you know, somewhere across town
because it's just not possible. So um, you got this

(47:30):
old subway system and hopefully that's good enough. And I'm
sure they've got you know, bus systems as well, but
they don't even mention that as a as a possible
option here, So I'm guessing that maybe it's not one
of the best bus systems in town or in the states.
You know. This next one on the list surprised me.
I don't know. This one did come up on the
wallet hub as being one of the worst as well.
Um it was. It was the third worst on the

(47:51):
wallet hub thing uh survey, And I guess it's it's
a little bit higher in this list, if you want
to look at it that way. So yeah, I don't know.
This this one really surprised you. Uh huh. I think
it's just every time that I see Detroit on a
list of something bad that's automotive related, you know, I
feel a little bit sad. You would think it would

(48:11):
be the best, wouldn't you. I mean, you think you
would assume it's it's the motor city. You would think
that they would cater to automobiles and automobile owners and drivers,
and they kind of do. I mean, it's it's still
it's not really so much that. It's it's just that
your insurance premiums are going to be extremely high due
to theft and vandalism as we've known, you know what's
gone on in Detroit recently and the last gosh fifty

(48:32):
years or more how long? And longer than that probably, Um,
but they pay over double the national average for for
insurance premiums. So that's one thing that makes it just
horrible for car owners if you live in the city proper.
And Michigan has something called no fault policies that all people,
all all car drivers and owners must must have. Yeah. Sure,

(48:54):
so this can make things more expensive in general, gas
is more expensive. Also, surprise seeing the commute isn't too
bad six and a half minutes. Uh, there's there's it's
a little bit longer than average, not much, not much.
It's it has no subway system, right, so there's there

(49:15):
is a bus system. But what do you think of that? Okay,
I'll tell you what I think of that if you
ever well not you probably haven't. But um, imagine riding
a city bus in downtown Detroit. I I don't think
many people would necessarily think that's a great idea to
do that. Um, it's a it's a rough go it
really is. It's not trying to be gentle about this,

(49:36):
and but it's a it's a rough crowd. Yeah, you
count on the city buses and you go through some
pretty rough areas. So, um, that's kind of the way
that stands right now. That's always been the It's not
always been the case, but for a long time that's
been the case. And then we know that the trolley
car scandal that did away with any kind of trolley
cars or rail cars that were you know, electric cars

(49:58):
that were running from the suburbs down to Detroit Center
like the city center. Um, we can we've talked about
that in the past. Personal big people know about that.
Now they do have something. They don't have a subway,
but they do have an elevated train they called the
People Mover, and it's kind of a it's almost kind
of a joke among people that yeah, it really is. Um,

(50:19):
it's three miles and it has thirteen stations, and it
goes to some of the major centers. You know, it
goes to you know, the Cobbs Center, which or Cobo Center,
I should say, which is the convention center. It goes
to Joe Louis Arena, which now I don't know if
it still goes there. They're tearing that down. UM Greek Town,
you know that the Renaissance Center, some of the main
um I guess you would call it business hubs and

(50:41):
places that people go for recreation, you know, if you
can imagine, Uh, some people still go downtown for recreation,
Downtown Detroit, and there's still some areas that are are
nice to go and shop in and you know, watch
sporting events things like that. I mean, it happens, but
not with such frequency that you know, they need anything
more than this. You know, short little people move or
trained to to get people back and forth from where

(51:02):
they need to go. And we're noticing as we explore
these cities that all the cities who rank as worst
or best, which we're still having gotten to have, we
have well, does laundry list those? Okay? Yeah, because if
you live in them, you already know all the cities
that are the worst have a lot of the same
things in common. So I propose that we you know,

(51:25):
I propose we go through the next ones and just
point out any any differences. Can I just say one
thing before we move on? I feel like I have
to stick up for Detroit a little bit here. I'm
surprised you haven't. I have to, I mean because I
was saying some bad things and some disparaging things about
it right there. But it is on one of the
worst lists, right, so I had to say, what, what
is really making it a bad situation down there? There's

(51:45):
a lot of good things about Detroit to so to
you know, if you get a chance look into it,
there's some good things happening there as well. Um, all right,
so let's move a little faster through through this. And
I don't know why I felt I had to do that.
I have to have to stand up for you're you're
a loyal guy, I guess. I mean. Anyway, So Chicago's next, Yeah,
the Windy Apple, it's the big wind something like that,

(52:08):
the Windy City. Yeah. Again, gas taxes, uh, fees on
purchasing vehicles all higher. All the fees are wrong, commute times,
very little parking. When you do find parking, it's very expensive.
I know that from firsthand knowledge. Um. Again, stressful. They
have bad winters, They have bad roads in the spring
because of those bad winters. Uh. So you know every

(52:31):
spring you have to deal with, you know, the freeze
thaw situation that creates potholes and and you know, bad roads.
So there's that to deal with. But they do have
a couple of good options. Right there's the l which
is the fairly expansive public train system. Uh. There are
also bike lanes. Why do they keep forcing biking on us? Oh? Man?

(52:54):
You know I have my bike at work here. Yeah,
I know you do. Yeah, but you don't venture out
into the like actual deep part of the city, I mean,
like where heavy traffic is and stuff, do you. Uh No, really,
I like to bike around in the neighborhoods around here.
There's parks and there's all kinds of places to go
in and lightly traveled roads versus uh, you know, some
of the really intense downtown parts. Like when they're talking

(53:16):
about biking in Manhattan or biking in Chicago. I know
that Chicago has some some park areas as well, some
outline areas, and that's probably what they're talking about it.
I hope. Now we're going to a city on the
list that may surprise some people, but I doubt it.
The city that is home to apparently some of the

(53:37):
worst drivers in the country. Yeah, that's according to US
News and World Report, though not not US not US
not Now we haven't done an official survey, but yeah, isn't.
It's something that they have some of the country's worst
drivers there, and you know what that means. It means
high insurance premiums for that area too, because you're likely
to get an accident if you drive in Miami. Yep,
that's right, we're talking about. Miami also has all the

(54:00):
all the greatest hits of worst cities to own a car,
and it's got high tax is, very high population, high
commute time just under twenty eight minutes on average. But
generally good weather. That's a that's the plus column, right, Yeah,
there you go. That's optimistic. Yea, generally good weather outside
of the hurricane that hits there sometimes. Ouch. Yeah. Public

(54:21):
buses to train systems, but they don't, uh, they don't
go everywhere. So in some cases, if you live in
the burbs around the area, you're you're just going to
have to have a car. Yeah, that's just kind of
bad luck. I mean, two train systems, but none of
them go out to the suburbs. So yeah, you just
you have to put up with the with the daily commute. Um,

(54:41):
moving on West coast again, Los Angeles. Now, I would
have thought Los Angeles would place even higher on this list.
But it's very crowded. Of course, it's expensive. Uh there's
packed freeways, which are notoriously packed freeways, I guess. Um, However,
this is a little bit weird. They have better commute
times in l A than they do in New York
and d C. Which is strange because we hear so

(55:04):
much about how difficult traffic is in Los Angeles. I
mean even Saturday Night Live made a bunch of skits
that continually returned to that as a joke in the Californians.
Oh sure, trying to detail their way around town, like
with too much detail, right right, But for everybody else
but a lot of people, the average person does feel

(55:24):
like they must be a car owner to live in
Los Angeles, and it becomes a very expensive proposition because
of high gas prices, high insurance they pay. Oh get
the sixty one percent higher than the national average for insurance.
That's pretty high. Um, they have expensive repairs and maintenance
as well. Uh. There's alternates though, as you might guess. Sure, yeah,

(55:45):
you can ride the metro rail to work. If it
happens to hit the area where your where your job
is at, well it's likely that it will. I mean
as ninety three stations in the Greater l A area,
so uh stations. It's an awful lot of stations for
this metrorail system. So if you do happen to have that,
and you're in good shape. If not, you're commuting with

(56:07):
the rest of us. And Los Angeles is not on
a list that we found the best places to live,
but San Francisco is. Uh. And look, San Francisco beautiful town.
No secret that the weather in California is wonderful. Uh.
And San Francisco does rank, you know, consistently in the

(56:27):
top ten of places to live, except for the fact
that it is insanely expensive, and I think of pretty
recently a few years back, San Francisco became home to
the most expensive you know, um real estate, more so
than Manhattan. Really Yeah, wow, Okay, I knew its expensive.

(56:51):
I didn't know it was that expensive. Well, they can't.
They can't build anything else because they have zoning laws
they got you know, they're they're bounded in by the Bay. Yeah,
geography binds them. I guess that's what you're saying, right,
So gas is expensive, insurance is expensive, although now I
say only although insurance is only above the national average

(57:13):
compared to Los Angeles where it was sixty one, So
higher for um, for anybody in San Francisco, those residents
that they're paying for insurance. And again, you know, it's
a great place to live, it's beautiful and all that, um,
but it's not for everybody. And one surprise to me,
Ben was that they have longer commute times than Los

(57:33):
Angeles does. So it seems like the l A commute
is not all that bad really, you here, I always
hear about how bad it is, but it's not as
bad as New York, not as bad DC, not as
bad as uh as San Francisco. Even um must be
an efficient system in some way. I mean, they just
have such a volume of cars to get through there. Uh.
They do have, however, a couple of suggestions to get
around San Francisco. Now one of them, I think it's

(57:54):
funny the trolleys. The trolleys have a limited run, you know,
there's that's mostly for the tourists, I think, and you know,
of course that goes down to the financial district. I believe,
so you can use it for that. Uh. They do
suggest walking and biking the city, which would be very difficult.
Hill it's hilly. I've done that in the past visits
of friends was awful. Um. And then trying to Bark

(58:15):
trying to bike in San Francisco, that was ridiculous. I
would I almost had a heart attack and I was
only about twenty years old. I mean it felt that way.
I mean it was just ridiculously difficult. Yeah, Bark. You
mentioned bart that's the barrier rapid transit system. Um, they've
got more than one line too, They've got six lines
and forty five stations, so you can pretty much get
around town that way if you need to. And the

(58:36):
last one on our worst list then and then we'll
just quickly go through the best. Um. Seattle, Yes, yes, Seattle. Seattle, Washington,
it's also consistently ranked is one of the best places
to live. But it has a problem in addition to
the more expensive rates of everything across the board to
one degree another, uh, Seattle is in the position of

(59:00):
having um choke points due to the bridges. It's like
it's wedged between the Puget Sound and Lake Washington. So
there are only a few bridges that can accommodate the
traffic of a major metropolis. So this is another geography situation.
It's it's kind of trapped in between these these two
bodies of water. Um. So interesting that you know, that's

(59:22):
one thing that leads to extra congestion, you know, the
few bridges that I think if anybody has visited you know,
Barrier Islands or anything like that, you know, down in
Florida or any island, really you you know that the
trouble that goes along with that, you know, trying everybody
trying to get back and forth across that one bridge
or maybe you know, even if it's two or three bridges,
it's still very difficult at certain times a day. So

(59:43):
I completely understand that. But they're adding um, you know,
of course high costs for repairs, gasoline. Um, it's uh,
you know, like difficult city to get around, I guess.
But it's a beautiful city. I mean, if you if
you're into it for the natural beauty, the natural scenery,
you know, if you're you're okay with that long commute
and just kind of staring out the window at how
pretty it is in Seattle, that's fine, but I think

(01:00:05):
a lot of people get a little bit frustrated with
you know, the longer commute times. Um, they do suggest
biking to work, of course, of course, of course, why
can we not in this list with another biking suggestions
they have of course public bus and light rail as well,
so you know those are two other options. But UM, yeah,
I mean that's a that's an extensive list. And you

(01:00:25):
know what I said at the early part of this.
You know, it was based on a different criteria than
our other list, and that's why it's completely different. You know,
with the UM the you know, the commute times, the
fuel prices, the insurance prices, the taxes, the maintenance costs, UH,
population density stress, all that factors into today's list. And
I promise you would talk about the best US cities

(01:00:46):
UH to drive a car and we should just good
and list these off. And now I said, these were
completely different from the wallet hub Steady lists. The best
and worst were completely different. So, um, the best cities
to drive a car and rally North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio,
Kansas City, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri, Denver, Colorado, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Birmingham, Alabama,

(01:01:13):
and Richmond, Virginia. Yeah, Richmond Virginia I can personally vouch for.
And you've probably if you're a fan of road trips,
you've probably driven through several of the you know. The
only one that matched it up with matched up with
our wallet hub study was Raleigh, North Carolina. That was
number ten on their list, and the rest weren't even
on the list at all. Yeah, we had a lot

(01:01:33):
of places that were in the Southwest. We had, you know,
places from Texas and Arizona. Um, it's just kind of
rounding out that they had a lot of places from
Texas and Arizona, netlasts so um, just a different list
altogether because of the different criteria. Another thing I saw
that it is pretty fascinating is that the best cities

(01:01:54):
to drive in seemed to change more rapidly than the
worst cities. Is that right? Because it's tougher to improve.
I think it might be easier to decline, right, I
think you're I think you're right. And then also on
the state level, uh, the improvements or um the improvements

(01:02:16):
where the disrepair of states seems to also take a
longer time frame. Interesting so right now, if you live
in New Hampshire, Uh, You're it's safe to say you're
going to be one of the most fortunate car owners
in the United States for a while costwise, costwise, And

(01:02:36):
if you live in Hawaii or Alaska, it's just it's
not going to get better. It's beautiful, but but yeah,
it's gonna be expensive for you, right. But I would
hope you know, a lot of people have adjusted to
that going in And it's strange that you and I
and are super producer Tyler uh are in a are

(01:02:56):
in a relatively good position. I mean, we're not in
the catbird seat of car owners, but Georgia is not
that bad. We're always somewhere in the middle, which always
surprises me because the traffic is just so maddening here.
I would love for Georgia to have some sort of
uh superlative in here, even hopefully one of the good ones,

(01:03:17):
but hopefully not one of the worst ones. I do
want to say one one statistic that we should mention, uh, Fresno, California.
I think we may have mentioned this previous episode, but
I want everybody to know Fresno, California is one of
the worst cities that you'll see pop up sometimes. I

(01:03:37):
don't know if we got to it in our last episode.
It's for a very simple reason. In addition to all
the California fees and taxes and higher price of gas, Fresno,
California is often and repeatedly the car theft capital of
the United States. I see, so drive through it, but
you know, don't park overnight, don't don't stop. Don't stop. No,

(01:04:01):
you can. You can stop there, I guess, but I
don't try to buy insurance there because it's gonna be
sky high, right exactly. And you know, I'm not it
is a true statistic. But I'm not saying that your
car will instantly be stolen if you park it. I'm
just I'm just saying, though the numbers are there. Maybe
like when you go in the restaurants, sit where you
can see your car, maybe that's a suggestion. I do

(01:04:23):
that anyway. I do that too. I try to. I can.
If my wife thinks him crazy, I'd like to do that. Yeah,
it's good, it's good to do it. Um. This is
going to conclude our episode. I know we went a
little long, but we thought we thought it was interesting,
how changeable these things can be and how every city,
while they have these common factors making them the best

(01:04:44):
or the worst place, how they all have their own
unique fingerprints right that in many cases will never change.
There's usually one or two stand out you know, situations.
I get in that situation, but but factors that make
it the worst, like the six increase in insurance in

(01:05:05):
Los Angeles that that's a standout for them. The theft
and vandalism in Detroit that makes it a standout because
it seems significantly higher than in other places on this list.
So there's usually one thing if you if you read
between the lines on some of this, you'll find that
you know, one thing is worse than the other. And
with that, we do hope you enjoyed this episode, and
we want to hear from you. What's the weirdest thing

(01:05:27):
about where you drive? You know, does does your city
or does your town or does your your state have
some strange quirk that we outsiders wouldn't be hip too. Yeah,
I mean, even if this is like a one stoplight town,
just tell us about it. We're interested in you know,
what makes every city different? And uh and and tell
us what you know, what unique experiences you have on

(01:05:48):
your on your daily commute. You know, whether it's having
to dodge you know, herds of elk on the road.
You know, if you're in a remote area, or or
if it's you know, like you like in Manhattan or
something where you know you're drive to work is three miles,
but it takes you forty five minutes only smoke or
something like that, you're longer even Yes, we want to
hear from you. Scott and I are going to hit

(01:06:08):
the road today. We will be back very soon. In
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a little bit. You can find every episode that we

(01:06:31):
have ever ever done in the history of our show
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(01:06:53):
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