Auto experts at QuoteWizard analyzed over 65,000 proprietary data points on Kansas drivers to find which cities ranked best and worst based on the rate of incidents (accidents, speeding tickets, DUI’s, and moving citations). 

As it turns out, when it comes to overall driver quality Kansas isn’t great, but also not terrible. In QuoteWizard’s annual best and worst driver study Kansas ranked as the 23rd worst driving state. 

Out of that, Great Bend fared pretty well, ranking as one of the five best driving cities in the Sunflower State. It was joined by Parsons, Fort Scott, Liberal and Independence in the top five.

The five at the bottom of the heap were Derby, Gardner, Pratt, Prairie Village and Roeland Park. As for the state’s two largest cities, Wichita ranked 27th and Kansas City ranked 34th.

Of Great Bend, the report said “Great Bend shares similar characteristics as Pratt (one of the worst cities) with a number of highways intersecting in the city. Given it’s similarities to other bad driving cities, you really have to tip your cap to the quality of drivers in Great Bend. For it’s high merits in our incident data, Barton county had a 26.44 road fatality rate in 2017.”

The total road fatality rate (fatal accidents including: pedestrian, bicycle, and motorcycle) was calculated from numbers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  Kansas fell right near the middle of the pack. However, compared to its neighboring states, Kansas rated worse than all of its neighbors. With the exception of Nebraska, which ranked third worst.

Given it’s average scores, there are a few exceptions in the state. In a separate study on fastest driving cities, Wichita took the top spot as most lead footed city in the county. With Wichita’s fairly good ranking overall, the lead footed tendencies might actually be a result of police not letting anyone off with warnings. Ticket happy cops however don’t tell the full story behind the best and worst drivers in Kansas.

To determine overall driver quality in Kansas, the 50 largest cities in the state were ranked. Over 65,000 insurance quotes from Kansas drivers were analyzed using QuoteWizard.com and ranked cities by the highest rate of incidents. Incidents include accidents, speeding tickets, DUIs, and citations.