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Allstate ranks best and worst Canadian cities for auto accident claims

Drivers in Spruce Grove, Alta. are the least likely on the list to have this happen to them. (Thinkstock)
Drivers in Spruce Grove, Alta. are the least likely on the list to have this happen to them. (Thinkstock)

You may want to pay extra attention if you spend time behind the wheel in Montreal: you are almost three times as likely to be involved in an auto accident than if you drive in Spruce Grove, Alta.

At least that’s what Allstate Canada’s latest safe-driving survey suggests. The same goes Halifax, of all places, for some Toronto suburbs and for our nation’s capital.

While the rate of deaths and injuries due to auto accidents keeps falling nationally despite more cars on the road, we seem to be bumping into each other with more frequency.

According to the insurance company’s data from its seventh such study, there’s been a 7.3 per cent increase in collisions reflected in a rise of Allstate insurance claims to 5.57 per 100 vehicles from 5.19 in the last study.

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At least some of that can be attributed to the recent harsh winters in central and eastern Canada, says Jason Foroglou, agency manager for Allstate’s Curtis-Oshawa branch.

“Probably number 1 is weather,” he told Yahoo Canada. “The majority of frequencies [of claims], if you look at some of our data, is occurring in the winter months.”

Indeed, claims start ramping up in November and peak December through February, according to the Allstate data.

But there are other factors as well.

“When I start to see lower gas prices, lower unemployment, that kind of tends to lead to more people on the roads,” Foroglou said. “More people on the roads, more cars on the roads, more traffic, more congestion, leads to more collisions.”

Rear-end collisions and distracted driving link

Distracted driving is also a prime suspect, he said, especially in rear-end collisions. They account for more than one in four collision claims for Allstate outside Quebec, where they run third behind hitting parked cars and intersection crashes.


Read more:

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Tailgating and driving too fast for weather conditions account for some rear-enders but our obsession with staying connected is probably part of it.

“Maybe the phone rang and they looked over, or their phone beeped and they got a text and they thought they could read it quickly,” Foroglou said.

Outside Quebec, rear-enders are followed closely by crashes while turning or being in an intersection (23.54 per cent) and hitting parked vehicles (13.57 per cent). Injudicious lane changes account for another 11.24 per cent of claims.

Spruce Grove, an Edmonton bedroom community with a population of roughly 26,000, had the lowest claims rate of 3.43 per cent. The community’s claim frequency dropped 19 per cent from the previous study, which covered 2011-13, boosting it to No. 1 from its previous ranking of 17th.

Halifax, population 390,000, topped out at 7.12 per cent for 2013-15, compared with 5.76 per cent, dropping it to 81st and last from 73rd among communities outside Quebec in the previous study.

The Toronto-area cities of Ajax, North York and Scarborough take three of the bottom five rungs behind Halifax, with Ottawa squeezed in at No. 4.

“Those ones kind of don’t surprise me,” said Foroglou. “You’ve got areas of very dense populations and lots of traffic.”

They also have high volumes of commuters, often driving to and from work in the dark, when hazards such as black ice or parked cars jutting into traffic lanes can be harder to spot.

But smaller Ontario communities stack up behind Spruce Grove at the top of the rankings with less than four claims per 100 vehicles. Foroglou thinks that may be due to demographics.

“In towns where you have a higher population density of retirees, they’re traveling more during the day versus late at night,” he said. “They’re not really in a rush to get anywhere fast.”

He also suspects they’re less likely to be using their smartphones while driving.

High claims rates in Quebec

Allstate produced separate results for Quebec. Montreal exceeded Halifax’s poor claims frequency, posting 9.33 claims per 100 cars, though that’s an improvement of six per cent from the previous results. In fact, the 15 of the 20 Quebec communities had claims frequencies worse than Halifax. However, the overall collision claim frequency for Quebec declined 2.3 per cent.

Pointe-Claire, a suburb of Montreal, had the best performance in the province for the second year in a row at 6.34 per 100 vehicles.

The Allstate study is not truly national. It covers Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, involving communities where the company has at least 1,500 vehicles insured.

Some other interesting facts from the study:

  • The most dangerous day to drive is Friday, with a 16 per cent collision frequency percentage in Quebec, 17 per cent in the other surveyed provinces. Sunday seems the safest at 10.5 and 11.8 respectively;

  • The date with the fewest collision claims is Christmas Day, Dec. 25, while Dec. 23 has the most outside Quebec and Jan. 15 in la belle province;

  • June features the lowest claims rate, at six per 100 in Quebec and 4.6 elsewhere.