List of best drivers dings Richmond Highway, but doesn’t know where it is

Allstate insurance released its “America’s Best Drivers Report” earlier this week, which purports to rank the 200 largest cities in the U.S. from best to worst when it comes to the skills of their drivers.

Unsurprisingly, Washington D.C. and some of its suburbs ranked poorly. Also unsurprisingly, Allstate doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the now-numerous Richmond Highways in Northern Virginia. Nor is clear they understand there’s two different Richmond Highways in two different Alexandrias.

First, the rankings: D.C. finished 199th in the nation — only Baltimore was lower — while Alexandria (192nd) and Arlington (168th) also brought up the rear. Brownsville, Texas was ranked 1st, with Allstate’s data showing drivers there only file claims only every 14.9 years.

Fairfax County’s overall rating is unknown — but surely better than the rest of Nova — because Allstate only included cities on the list except for Arlington (which, for what it’s worth, has a much smaller population than Fairfax County).

Things got even trickier when Allstate also published a list of “Risky Roads,” which included roads from the 15 lowest-ranked cities where crashes are common. It included Richmond Highway in “Alexandria, VA” on the list — but Allstate’s image for Richmond Highway shows Route 1 in Arlington, not Alexandria (or Fairfax County).

Arlington last month officially changed the name of its portion of Route 1 (as well as part of Route 110) to “Richmond Highway,” which may explain part of the confusion. The City of Alexandria also muddied the Richmond Highway waters recently, changing the name of a small section of Route 1 within city limits in 2018.

It’s unclear if Allstate was referring to the city of Alexandria’s Richmond Highway in its post — doubtful, since the city’s Richmond Highway is only about 1.5 miles long — or the original Richmond Highway in Fairfax County, which has the mailing address of “Alexandria” between the Capital Beltway and Fort Belvoir. If that’s the case, it would cast doubt on Alexandria’s overall rankings on the list since Fairfax County’s Richmond Highway is completely outside city limits.

Confused? As Allstate would say, you’re in good company hands.