Study Proves Iowa Is The Best State In The Country To Drive In

There is always a battle between Iowa and Illinois drivers. We argue about who has the better drivers and which state is better to drive in. A new study has proved that Iowa is a better state to drive in. The study also proves that overall, Iowa is the best state to drive in.

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Our friends at WalletHub have conducted a study to show 2022's Best and Worst States to Drive in. To figure this out and to rank the states, WalletHub compared the 50 states across four key dimensions:

Cost of Ownership & Maintenance
Traffic & Infrastructure
Safety
Access to Vehicles & Maintenance

WalletHub evaluated those dimensions using 31 relevant metrics. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the best for drivers.

Finally, WalletHub did a bunch of math and determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics. That allowed them to calculate their overall score and used each state's score to rank-order the states.

This is WalletHub's list of 2022's Best and Worst States to Drive in:

Source: WalletHub

According to WalletHub, Iowa is the best state to drive in.

Iowa ranked 6^th in Share of Rush-Hour Traffic Congestion, 23^rd in Traffic Fatality Rate, 21^st in Car Theft Rate, 21^st in Auto-Repair Shops per Capita, 14^th in Average Gas Prices, 28^th in Auto-Maintenance Costs, 4^th in Road Quality, and 15^th in Car Dealerships per Capita.

Iowa had an overall score of 62.04 (the best out of any state) and ranked in the following four key dimensions:

Cost of Ownership & Maintenance - 5th
Traffic & Infrastructure - 7th
Safety - 38th
Access to Vehicles & Maintenance - 22nd

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Illinois was actually pretty high on this list. Illinois ranked as the 9th best state to drive in, according to WalletHub. From the statistics we received from WalletHub, Illinois ranked 4th in Auto-Repair Shops per Capita, which is better than Iowa.

Illinois had an overall score of 59.71 and ranked in the following four key dimensions:

Cost of Ownership & Maintenance - 34th
Traffic & Infrastructure - 36th
Safety - 6th
Access to Vehicles & Maintenance - 5th

You can see how the other 48 states ranked here.

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LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.