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Houston swerves onto new list of U.S. cities with the worst drivers

Don't drive distracted, Houston. Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

Locals may think that Houston is one of the most traffic-ridden cities, but its drivers are actually much better than many other U.S. cities, according to a new study by Forbes Advisor.

In its report "Cities With The Worst Drivers, Ranked," published February 8, Forbes Advisor analyzed the 50 most populated U.S. cities across five metrics to determine which have the worst drivers in the country. Those metrics, calculated per 100,000 city residents using a five-year average from 2017-2021, were: total number of fatal car accidents, number of people killed in fatal crashes, and number of fatal car accidents involving a drunk, distracted, or speeding driver.

Houston ranked No. 23 overall, earning a score of 59.27 points out of a possible 100. That means the drivers here are solidly average — and that other Texas cities' drivers are, amazingly, even worse than ours.

The report found approximately 10.81 total fatal crashes occur for every 100,000 city residents in Houston, with less than 12 people (11.36) killed in fatal crashes per 100,000 residents.

Where drunk drivers are involved, Houston ranked No. 9 for the highest per-capita number of fatal crashes. Fewer than five fatal drunk driving crashes (4.44) occurred per 100,000 residents.

This troubling discovery isn't exclusive to Houston, the state of Texas as a whole still struggles with drunk drivers. More than five people are killed in car crashes involving a drunk driver for every 100,000 Texans, according to a 2023 Forbes report.

Here's how Houston fared in the remaining categories:

  • No. 33 – Number of fatal crashes involving speeding (2.79 per 100,000 residents)
  • No. 40 – Number of fatal crashes involving a distracted driver (0.24 per 100,000 residents)
Forbes Advisor concluded that three of the top-15 U.S. cities with the worst drivers were located in Texas. Dallas (No. 6) earned a score of 90.97 points to take the crown for the city with the worst drivers in the state. Fort Worth (No. 9) also earned a top-10 spot, and San Antonio ranked No. 12. Austin fell behind Houston into No. 24.

The report found Dallas had the third-highest number of fatal car accidents involving a drunk driver, with 6.25 crashes per 100,000 residents. Dallas also ranked No. 4 in the category for the highest number of fatal car accidents involving speeding: 5.69 per 100,000 residents.

The most dangerous U.S. city to drive in, Forbes says, is Albuquerque, New Mexico. Albuquerque leads with the highest number of fatal car accidents involving a distracted driver, at 5.42 crashes per 100,000 city residents.

The top 10 U.S. cities with the worst drivers are:

  • No. 1 – Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • No. 2 – Memphis, Tennessee
  • No. 3 – Detroit, Michigan
  • No. 4 – Tuscon, Arizona
  • No. 5 – Kansas City, Missouri
  • No. 6 – Dallas, Texas
  • No. 7 – Louisville, Kentucky
  • No. 8 – Phoenix, Arizona
  • No. 9 – Fort Worth, Texas
  • No. 10 – Tampa, Florida

The study calculated five-year averages using data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality and Injury Reporting System Tool for the years 2017-2021, and U.S. Census Bureau city population data from 2022.

The report and its methodology can be found on forbes.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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A View From HETI

Rice University scientists' “recharge-to-recycle” reactor has major implications for the electric vehicle sector. Photo courtesy Jorge Vidal/Rice University.

Engineers at Rice University have developed a cleaner, innovative process to turn end-of-life lithium-ion battery waste into new lithium feedstock.

The findings, recently published in the journal Joule, demonstrate how the team’s new “recharge-to-recycle” reactor recharges the battery’s waste cathode materials to coax out lithium ions into water. The team was then able to form high-purity lithium hydroxide, which was clean enough to feed directly back into battery manufacturing.

The study has major implications for the electric vehicle sector, which significantly contributes to the waste stream from end-of-life battery packs. Additionally, lithium tends to be expensive to mine and refine, and current recycling methods are energy- and chemical-intensive.

“Directly producing high-purity lithium hydroxide shortens the path back into new batteries,” Haotian Wang, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, co-corresponding author of the study and co-founder of Solidec, said in a news release. “That means fewer processing steps, lower waste and a more resilient supply chain.”

Sibani Lisa Biswal, chair of Rice’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the William M. McCardell Professor in Chemical Engineering, also served as co-corresponding author on the study.

“We asked a basic question: If charging a battery pulls lithium out of a cathode, why not use that same reaction to recycle?” Biswal added in the release. “By pairing that chemistry with a compact electrochemical reactor, we can separate lithium cleanly and produce the exact salt manufacturers want.”

The new process also showed scalability, according to Rice. The engineers scaled the device to 20 square centimeters, then ran a 1,000-hour stability test and processed 57 grams of industrial black mass supplied by industry partner Houston-based TotalEnergies. The results produced lithium hydroxide that was more than 99 percent pure. It also maintained an average lithium recovery rate of nearly 90 percent over the 1,000-hour test, showing its durability. The process also worked across multiple battery chemistries, including lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese oxide and nickel-manganese-cobalt variants.

Looking ahead, the team plans to scale the process and consider ways it can sustain high efficiency for greater lithium hydroxide concentrations.

“We’ve made lithium extraction cleaner and simpler,” Biswal added in the release. “Now we see the next bottleneck clearly. Tackle concentration, and you unlock even better sustainability.

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