Road Trip: Texas Tops Survey As The Best Place To Drive

Planning on hitting the open road this weekend?

A recent survey indicates the Lone Star State is the top spot in the U.S. when it comes to road trips, and there’s a whole lot of Texas between Beaumont in the east, and El Paso in the west.

Most Texans who enjoy a good road trip may consider whether or not there’s a Buc-ee’s along their route, but this survey took into consideration several different factors.

Some of those factors used in the WalletHub.com survey included the quality of the roads, traffic congestion along the way, the number of car thefts in the state, the amount of car washing facilities or maintenance facilities available, gas prices.

So how’d Texas fare?

• 28th – Share of Rush-Hour Traffic Congestion
• 28th – Traffic Fatality Rate
• 6th – Auto-Repair Shops per Capita
• 3rd – Avg. Gas Prices
• 21st – Auto-Maintenance Costs
• 22nd – Road Quality
• 2nd – Car Dealerships per Capita

Of course anyone who has ever experienced Interstate 35 becoming a virtual parking lot during morning or evening rush hours in Austin, dodged screwy drivers on US 75 in Dallas, or been relentlessly tailgated and flipped off by friendly Houstonians on the Katy Freeway, may call some of this methodology into question.

Texas ranked 22 in road quality, but it’s not clear if the survey took into account the seemingly endless construction on Interstate 35 in Bell County, and Interstate 45 in Limestone County, or the terrible pothole issues in Houston.

In fact, a 2017 survey rated Houston as the 50th worst city in the US to drive in, making it the worst in Texas, right behind Dallas, ranked 49th, Austin at No. 41, and San Antonio at No. 36.

Nonetheless, the survey says it’s true.

According to the survey, Texas was No. 5 on the list when it came to low precipitation, which is a fact in some cases.

The lack of real rainfall is a fact if you are driving west toward Odessa and Midland, which is basically a desert.

However, once you travel east toward Bastrop, and father into the piney woods, the rainfall rates are a bit more measurable, and a good rain shower can be down right refreshing.

Texas also ranked high when it comes to the number of car washes per capita.

Recently, Buc-ee’s in Katy was recognized by Guinness Book as having the world’s longest car wash, making it something worthing experiencing.

Texas was also rated high for having some of the lowest gas prices in the US, coming at a solid No. 3 in the survey.

By and large, Texans can always come up with a lot of reasons why they think their state is better than everyone else, but driving usually isn’t high on the list.

Click the link and find out how every other state fared in the survey.

Image: Shutterstock

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