New Study Reveals The Worst Drivers In The Country – Where Does Nevada Rank?

When you live in a city like Las Vegas, it’s easy to get caught up with thinking we’re surrounded by some of the worst drivers in the country! Heck, just last night when I was driving to our broadcast at Gilley’s, I could have sworn that the person next to me was driving terribly on purpose! They wouldn’t let me into their lane, even though I had my blinker on for almost a mile. And at one point, it felt that they were matching my speed to make sure I couldn’t get over. It was frustrating and things like this happen all the time inside the Silver State. However, according to a new study we’re actually not that bad when compared to the rest of the country.

People who drive dangerously are terrifying to me. It’s such a red flag when the person next to you on the highway is changing lanes with “main character” energy. Like, bro… we get it, you gotta get someplace, but so does everyone else on the road. And with so many of these entitled drivers on the roadways, it’s not surprising that there’s been a nationwide surge in fatal car crashes.

The increase of such accidents is significant. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), deadly crashes have seen a 12.7% increase between 2019 and 2023.

One of the biggest culprits of fatal crashes is something you might be reading this on right now, a phone. According to the study conducted by Forbes Advisor, people looking at their phones were used within the same metrics as people who drive under the influence.  

The Forbes Advisor study looked at with states with the worst drivers and one of the wildest takeaways is that some of the worst driving in the country can be found on the wide open roads in the middle of the United States. New Mexico ranks in at number 1 in terms of bad drivers, followed by Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri.

New Mexico had the highest number of fatal wrecks involving distracted drivers. The highest total number of fatal crashed happened in Mississippi. Meanwhile, Montana topped the list for drunk drivers involved in fatal accidents.

Meanwhile, here in Nevada, we rank 32^nd in worst driving, which actually places us as the 18^th safest state to drive in. According to the study, Nevada sees 14.38 fatal car wrecks per 100k licensed drivers and 4.33 drunk drivers involved in fatal accidents per 100k licensed drivers.

On the good side of the study, Massachusetts is the state with the best drivers… or at least the least dangerous ones. In fact, 6 of the top 10 states with the best drivers are on the Northeast part of the country.

There are a lot of foreign words in the English language that Americans have adopted over the generations. A lot more than we realize, actually.

Some of them have become so common that we've forgotten they're not part of our native language. Others words still feel very foreign to many of us, in spite of the fact that we've had them in our dictionary for centuries.

Those are often the less common words that we are not throwing around in our everyday speech. When words are used sporadically rather than frequently, we don't get as much opportunity to master them.

It's shocking to hear, but foreign words in the English language cover about 80% of the total number of words, according to dictionary.com. In fact, what we know as American English is actually mostly words borrowed from approximately 350 other languages.

The languages most dominant in American English are German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and French. But our dictionary also has plenty of less common languages present. Including Urdu, Yiddish, and Zulu, dictionary.com reports.

Related: Lost In Translation - 7 Common Misused Phrases

With so many words coming from languages that aren't our own, it only makes sense we might struggle with pronunciations. After all, these words often follow different phonetic rules than American English words do.

A group of translation experts at localazy.com recently did a study to find out which foreign words in the English language residents in each state are least comfortable with. Specifically, which words residents are most likely to mispronounce. And they found the top five for us in Nevada.

They did this by flagging common words that were googled every month in conjunction with words like "pronunciation" or "meaning". And identified which words were most often searched for like this in our state.

What they could indicate from this study was which foreign words in the English language were the ones people needed the most help with understanding. Or, more specifically, pronouncing.

The ironic thing about Nevadans mispronouncing anything is the fact that we get so annoyed if someone says the name of our state incorrectly. I wonder if there is a YouTube video of someone pronouncing the word "hypocrisy"?

Look at that. There is. I found this by googling "how to pronounce hypocrisy". If I had been part of this study, localazy.com would have just added a check to "hypocrisy" column.

Side note: this Julien Miguel guy is a fun one to learn pronunciations from. He's not quick about it by any means.

But he reminds me of Esteban Vihaio in Kill Bill 2. So you will see his translations more when we get down to our list.

So, while tourists are butchering the name of our state, some of us are butchering words from other regions. And round and round we go.

For those still confused about how to pronounce Nevada, here you go. Straight from the mouths of the Vegas-born band, The Killers.

It's Nevada. Not Nevahda.

As a Vegas local, I can tell you it's very annoying when someone says the latter. It's actually an inside joke we use when we're talking about out-of-towners.

But, considering how many foreign words we are allegedly guilty of killing ourselves, perhaps we should show a little more understanding.

With that being said, here are the results of the study by localazy.com.

This is one of those words that so many people have said incorrectly, that the wrong pronunciation is becoming acceptable. "Niche" is a French word that we use most often to talk about that specialized corner of the market that's perfect to sell a specific type of product.

The word should be said with a "sh" sound at the end. Not the "ch" sound many Americans are guilty of. But both are becoming equally acceptable, at least in America. Maybe don't say it the American way in France, though.

"Niche" ranked highest on this list. With 1,262 relevant google searches pertaining to the word. And it seems the whole country is just as confused about it. Because the word got 126,383 monthly searches nationwide.

As mentioned in this video, "per diem" means "per day" or "by day". And usually pertains to an amount of money given to an employee each day for work.

It's of Latin origin. Much like "carpe diem". You probably haven't had needed to use this phrase unless you've been an independent contractor or otherwise paid "per day" by an organization.

And apparently not many Nevadans are familiar with this kind of employment. Because "per diem" was second on this list. With 893 average monthly searches.

Well, according to our friend, Julien, everyone I know is saying this word incorrectly. Being Italian, its "i" is supposed to be drawn out to sound like an "e".

In this video, you hear Julien saying the "t" in the word can be said either in the hard or soft way, depending on which country's natives are saying the word. But he doesn't changed the sound of the "i".

So, while the proper pronunciation is that drawn out "d-eee-to" sound, Americans say the "i" short and the "t" soft.

And we're probably not going to change that anytime soon. But people are still googling it to see the pronunciation.

"Ditto" was number three on this list, with 842 average monthly searches.

Julien teaches us, in the video, that this is also a French word. However, he says Americans say it differently than the French. The French stress the first syllable. Whereas Americans stress the second.

Personally, I'm okay if you say it either way. As long as you don't do what Emperor Peter does in "The Great" and say "toosh". Just, no.

However we are pronouncing it, "touché" was the fourth most googled word during the duration of the study. With 809 average monthly searches from Nevada. Nationwide, though, it ranked even higher. It came in second for google searches across the country.

The fifth most mispronounced word by Nevadans, according to localazy.com, is "ennui". Probably because it's easily the most pretentious word of the bunch. Yes, you have plenty of opportunity to use it in everyday chatter. Since it means a feeling of dissatisfaction. But try to make it your word of the day and see if you get away with it around your casual friends. It doesn't usually work without people flagging you as kind of snooty.

But maybe Nevadans are trying to get more sophisticated in their vernacular. "Ennui" had an average monthly searches of 747 in this study.