odd, but okay

Dallas suburb proclaimed 8th best U.S. city to drive in, per report

Plano is a pleasant city to drive in, according to WalletHub.

David Downs/Visit Plano

Dallas roadways are no picnic, but in one neighboring town, it's easy street: A new report by WalletHub puts none other than Plano on its list of the top 10 best U.S. cities to drive in for 2025.

The annual report examined 100 of the largest U.S. cities to determine their "driver friendliness" using 30 relevant metrics across four key dimensions: Costs for vehicle ownership and maintenance, traffic and infrastructure, safety, and vehicle and maintenance accessibility.

Plano came in as the 8th most driver-friendly U.S. city with high marks on areas like road safety.

No. 1 on the list: the Gulf Coast city of Corpus Christi, which came in as the No. 1 best city to drive in nationwide. Other Texas cities that made the top 10 include Laredo (No. 5), Lubbock (No. 6), and Austin (No. 9).

According to WalletHub's findings, Plano's driver and road safety is the 15th best in the country. This category analyzed factors like traffic fatality rates per capita, the proportion of uninsured drivers, rate of car thefts and larceny, the strictness of DUI punishment, and other metrics.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, about 87 percent of a household's daily travel is done in personal vehicles, underscoring just how dependent Americans are on their cars rather than public transportation methods like busses and trains.

"Drivers annually spend an average of more than 369 hours on the road," the report's author wrote. "That’s 15.4 days. Add the costs of wasted time and fuel due to traffic congestions, and our collective tab comes to about $771 per driver each year."

Dallas ranked as the 47th best U.S. city to drive in. That's a great improvement over last year when Dallas ranked 60th on the list. But it's not shocking that the city still ranks low on the list considering its continuous road projects, closures, and dangerous freeways. Driving in Dallas really isn't enjoyable.

Fort Worth beat Dallas handily, ranking as the 27th best city to drive in. Three more DFW cities that earned spots on the list include Arlington (No. 18), Garland (No.24), and Irving (No. 29). Garland also earned a small shout out in the report for having the 5th-most auto-repair shops per capita in the nation.

Poor Houston was No. 66, the lowest-ranked Texas city on the list for 2025.

WalletHub's top 10 best U.S. cities to drive in for 2025 are:

No. 1 – Corpus Christi, Texas
No. 2 – Greensboro, North Carolina
No. 3 – Boise, Idaho
No. 4 – Scottsdale, Arizona
No. 5 – Laredo, Texas
No. 6 – Lubbock, Texas
No. 7 – Birmingham, Alabama
No. 8 – Plano, Texas
No. 9 – Austin, Texas
No. 10 – Winston-Salem, North Carolina

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Texas shocks as America's No. 3 least safe state in 2026 report

Photo by Hiroshi Kimura on Unsplash

Texas ranks as the 48th "safest" state — out of 50.

While no state is invulnerable, some do more to protect their residents than others. And a new study has declared Texas one of the five least safe states in America.

WalletHub's "Safest States in America (2026)" report examined all 50 states for their emergency preparedness and for residents' personal and residential, financial, workplace, and road safety. Factors that weighed into the rankings include specific crime rates per capita, the share of the population that is uninsured, road quality ratings, workplace injury statistics, and more.

Texas ranked at the bottom of the list as the 48th "safest" state — or the third least safe state. It's joined by several other Southern states, like Mississippi (No. 50), Louisiana (No. 49), Florida (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46).

According to WalletHub, Texas specifically ranks third to last in the nationwide "emergency preparedness" category, which was determined based on the prevalence of climate disasters causing $1 billion or more in damages from 1980-2024, and the loss amount resulting from those disasters.

The Lone Star State also ranked 40th (or 10th worst) across three safety categories: personal and residential safety, financial safety, and road safety. The report additionally found that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents nationally.

Texas' "workplace safety" was the state's highest-ranking category, landing 30th nationally.

Additional rankings that determined Texas' overall safety include:

No. 30 – Assaults per capita
No. 32 – Fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 full-time workers
No. 32 – Sex offenders per capita
No. 35 – Murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita
No. 36 – Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel
No. 41 – Loss amounts from climate disasters per capita

According to the report, the five safest states in America are all located in the Northeast. Vermont leads as the country's safest state in 2026, followed by Massachusetts (No. 2), Maine (No. 3), New Hampshire (No. 4), and Connecticut (No. 5).

Though every state has varying levels of safety, WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo asserted that the safest places in the U.S. categorically invest in protecting their residents. Top-ranking states have low crime rates and diligently maintain their road infrastructure, and other states that prioritize their residents' safety have "strong economies and job markets that prevent people from falling into dangerous financial situations."

"[The safest states in America] have high levels of occupational safety and disaster preparedness, too," Lupo said. "In addition, states are made safer by efforts that individual residents take, such as forming a neighborhood watch or working in firefighting and EMT jobs at high rates."

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