San Francisco, Oakland Ranked Worst Cities In U.S. To Drive In
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- America's love affair with cars endures, but in the Bay Area automobiles get no love. According to a new study, driving here is costly, time-consuming, and unsafe.
When the folks at Wallet Hub compared 100 largest U.S. cities for their driver-friendliness, San Francisco came in dead last. Oakland has nothing to toot its horn about, either. It ranked 99.
The study looked at 25 things that impact life behind the wheel: gas prices, hours spent in traffic, auto shops per capita, even weather. It paints a grim picture of drivers in the City by the Bay. They pay the highest gas prices in the country, and are tied with drivers in Miami, Atlanta, New York, L.A. and D.C. for the highest number of hours spent sitting in traffic.
Infrastructure is terrible and safety is even worse, scoring 93 and 98 respectively. The only roads less safe than San Francisco's are in Newark, New Jersey and St. Louis, Missouri.
As for the cost of owning a car, cities in the bottom tier include San Jose, Anaheim, Fremont, Oakland, Los Angeles. At the very bottom is -- you guessed it, San Francisco.
While life behind the wheel is no fun in the Bay Area, people who live here seem content -- statistically, at least. Wallet Hub ranks Fremont, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Rosa and Oakland among the top ten happiest places to live in America. Just don't get in a car.
