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In a 2004 country song, Blake Shelton sings about waiting in traffic and dealing with drivers who have a “road rage attitude.” His response is imagining himself on “some beach, somewhere.” But according to a recent study by a Utah law firm, the coastal states don’t have the friendliest drivers. Even Hawaii, where—as Shelton would say—you have “nowhere to go and all day to get there,” comes in second place. The friendliest drivers are gracing the roads of Idaho.

Idaho: More cows than drivers

Idaho is often called the “Gem State” for its mining history. It’s the 13th-largest state in the U.S. but has just 1.9 million people. Sixty-three percent of Idaho is public land. It’s a land of extremes, with the highest single dune (470 feet), the highest river you can navigate by boat (2,129 feet), yet also the deepest river gorge (7,900 feet). With agriculture one of its biggest industries, Idaho also has a huge cattle population. Idaho has 2,500,000 cows—that’s 1.36 per person.

The Conboy Law Firm in Utah decided to rank the friendliest drivers in the U.S. The firm came up with a road “ragelessness” score for each state in the union. To do that, it combined five years of survey data on courteous and rude drivers, DUI arrests, and the number of fatal crashes.

Idaho’s low population didn’t help it out. The law firm ranked information such as arrests and crashes per capita. Idaho’s overall score was still 83.76 out of 100, which is head and shoulders above any other state. In fact, no other state broke 80.

The aforementioned Hawaii did pretty well on courteousness and came in second in the number of fatal crashes. But it had 1,000 times as many DUI arrests as Idaho. Alaska is also full of courteous drivers, but had more fatal accidents and DUI arrests than even Hawaii. Two of Idaho’s neighbors came in fourth (Washington) and tied for fifth with New Mexico (Oregon). I guess drivers in the Pacific Northwest are just friendlier.

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