This Map Reveals the Best and Worst States to Drive In

Anyone who's spent any time on the 405 in California is intimately familiar with the fresh hell that driving can be. Same goes for any non-native who's tried to navigate the streets of Boston from behind the wheel. But how does driving actually measure up from coast to coast when you consider all the factors, and which states are objectively the worst and best for driving? 

A new map sums it up pretty nicely by ranking all 50 states on their commuting conditions, weighing everything from congestion and insurance rates to road quality and gas prices. 

The map comes from the research team at WalletHub, who crunched the numbers on a whole bunch of data to figure out where in the country being a driver sucks the most. Specifically, they compared states using 23 different metrics across the following four key categories: cost of ownership and maintenance, traffic and infrastructure, safety, and access to vehicles and maintenance. In the end, they found that Texas is the best place to be a driver, followed by Kansas, and then Nebraska. Alternately, it turns out Hawaii is the worst place to drive, with Washington and Maryland rounding out the bottom three. 

To find out where your state lands on the list, here's the full ranking from worst to best:

50. Hawaii
49. Washington
48. Maryland
47. California
46. Connecticut
45. Alaska
44. Massachusetts
43. Rhode Island
42. New Jersey
41. New York
40. Michigan
39. Delaware
38. Vermont
37. New Hampshire
36. Nevada
35. Maine
34. Pennsylvania
33. New Mexico
32. Colorado
31. Wyoming
30. South Carolina
29. Mississippi
28. Missouri
27. Louisiana
26. Utah
25. West Virginia
24. Wisconsin
23. Montana
22. Ohio
21. North Dakota
20. South Dakota
19. Florida
18. Tennessee
17. Kentucky
16. Arizona
15. Indiana
14. Oklahoma
13. Virginia
12. Idaho
11. Minnesota
10. Illinois
9. Arkansas
8. Alabama
7. Georgia
6. Oregon
5. North Carolina
4. Iowa
3. Nebraska
2. Kansas
1. Texas

The WalletHub team also plucked some interesting tidbits from the data that helps explain exactly where certain states excel and others fail. For instance, the states with the lowest percentage of rush hour congestion are Mississippi, New Mexico, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Kansas, while Delaware has the highest, followed by Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, and California. And when it comes to average maintenance costs, Oregon, West Virginia, Georgia, Indiana, and Arkansas have the lowest, while Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii, and New York have the highest. If you want to see more of the revealing figures they found, you can scope out their full report here

And while rankings can't do much to clear up the bumper to bumper traffic in front of you, next time you're stuck just remember things could probably be worse (sorry, Hawaii).

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Joe McGauley is a senior writer for Thrillist. Follow him @jwmcgauley.