I frequently travel to cities on the west coast and the intermountain west, and just recently traveled to several cities in the southern and eastern states. When I travel, I am always paying attention to transportation systems and driver behavior, in no small part because I get around by walking, bicycling and transit. From these experiences, I can state clearly that Sacramento has the worst drivers of any city I’ve visited. The incidence of aggressive and belligerent drivers is probably about average. What is so different, though, is the low skill level of drivers here. A brief list:

• unawareness of traffic law (California Vehicle Code), both old and new
• oblivious to what is going on around them, focused on their phone or car or daydreaming, not paying attention to others on and off the roadway
• no understanding of taking turns at intersections with four-way stop signs; the most basic rule of intersections, first come – first served, is apparently not known by most drivers
• uncertainty about where their vehicle is on the road; drifting into adjacent traffic lanes and bike lanes, stopping where they probably did not intend to stop; this is not just a problem of oversized trucks and SUVs where the driver cannot actually see the roadway, but for most drivers of most vehicles; the damage to vertical delineators, medians, traffic circles and roundabout, and curbs, attests that they don’t know where their vehicle is, or don’t care
• unwillingness to stop (or yield, as the law states) for people walking across the street at intersections
• failing to look when entering or exiting driveways for people on the sidewalk
• running stop signs
• running red lights

And most irritating to me, stopping for bicyclists when the driver has the right of way and the bicyclist does not. This teaches bicyclists to go when it is not legal for them to do so, and not safe. It also delays bicyclists. I once totaled up the amount of time I wasted waiting for drivers to take their legal right of way, and it was about 20 hours per year. Time that I will never get back.

I agree that really solving bad driver behavior requires correcting the roadways. But we have spent billions building unsafe roadways, and will have to spend billions making roadways safe again. When will we have that kind of money?

Again, Sacramento is sort of in the middle of cities making changes to their roadways. Much less than many cities (most notably the bay area), but significantly more than many cities. So the lack of safe roadways does not explain all of the bad driver behavior. Drivers here really are less skilled.

Why? I don’t know. But I’m certainly getting tired of it. Nearly every trip I take walking and bicycling, I am threatened by unskilled drivers, yes, and sometimes belligerent drivers. Sometimes many times on a single trip. I have a high level of skill in both walking and bicycling, watching out for and responding to unskilled driving. But what of everyone else who does not have that skill level? It is ironic that I, as a walker and bicyclist, need a high level of skill to navigate our transportation system, but the same expectation of drivers does not exist.