2 area suburbs have top records for safe driving, study says. KC, not so much
Two Kansas City suburbs are home to some of the safest drivers in the country, a new report says, while other parts of the area has become substantially more risky to drive in over the last 10 years.
Insurance company Allstate analyzed data related to auto insurance claims in the 200 most-populated U.S. cities for its Best Drivers report for 2025.
The report revealed that drivers in Olathe are some of the least likely to experience a car accident. Olathe ranked as the No. 6 safest city to drive in the country. The study found drivers in this city average 12.77 years between car collisions. This is 17.7% lower than the national average of a collision once every 10.56 years, according to Allstate claims data.
Olathe isn’t the only Johnson County city to make the top 20, as Overland Park ranked No. 15 with drivers experiencing a car collision every 11.59 years. It’s 8.9% lower than the national average.
Allstate’s report compared each city to where it ranked in 10 years ago, and both Johnson County cities have improved some since 2015. Olathe was the 14th safest city to drive in at the time, and Overland Park was the 32nd safest.
Where does Kansas City rank on Allstate’s safest drivers list?
A couple of Midwest cities have seen a sharp decline in safe driving since 2015, according to Allstate. That includes Kansas City, both in Kansas and Missouri.
Kansas City, Missouri, ranked as the 17th safest city to drive in 2015, and now it sits at 101 on Allstate’s list. Drivers average 8.98 years between car collisions, which is enough to drop the city 84 spots. It’s 17.5% higher than the national average. Kansas City’s drop was among the largest on the list, alongside other Midwest cities, like St. Louis, which dropped 90 spots to No. 175, and Des Moines, Iowa, which dropped 89 spots to No. 108.
Kansas City, Kansas, was the safest city to drive in 2015, claiming the No. 1 spot. It fell 43 spots in 10 years and now sits at No. 44, with drivers averaging 10.55 between car collisions, nearly even with the national average.
The insurance company says it analyzed property and collision damage claims reported to them during a two-year period from January 2022 to December 2023. The report defines a collision as “any auto crash resulting in a property or collision damage claim” and uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau to determine the country’s 200 most-populated cities.
This story was originally published June 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
