There’s an old saying, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” and it turns out it holds some truth—especially when it comes to Tesla owners, who have earned a reputation for being reckless on the road. A recent survey from LendingTree backs this up, revealing that EV owners are responsible for the highest number of incidents, including accidents, speeding tickets and drunk driving fines. Tesla drivers top the list, followed by Ram and Subaru owners in second and third place. While social media often highlights Tesla-related accidents, this study clarifies it all.
Top brands with maximum incidents
Tesla drivers lead the way forward for all the wrong reasons. Based on LendingTree’s QuoteWizard tool, 36.94 out of 1000 EV drivers were involved in incidents between January 1, 2024, to December 31, 2024. In the previous survey, Tesla was the second worst ranked on the list with 31.13 incidents from November 14, 2022 to November 14, 2023. Some have stated that instant acceleration and blistering pace may contribute to these numbers.
In the land of the pickup trucks, Ram drivers, unfortunately, live up to the stereotype. They have an incident rate of 33.92, which is a shade worse than last year’s report at 32.90. There’s a silver lining for Ram owners as they are now rated as the worst drivers in 16 states, an improvement from 23 states in the previous study.
Subaru takes the third spot with 32.85 incidents, which is a growing worry for the brand as it is up from 30.09. To round up the top 5, Subaru is followed by Audi and Mazda.
Being the top car brands with the worst drivers, no prize in guessing that Tesla, Ram and Subaru also have the highest accident rates. Based on 1000 drivers in the survey, the crash numbers for Tesla are 26.67, Ram 23.15 and Subaru 22.89.
Top 3 best car brands
According to the survey, the best car brand drivers with the least incidents are Mercury, Pontiac and Cadillac. What is interesting to note is that the top two brands are no longer in production. Mercury has 18.63 incidents followed by Pontiac with 19.72 and Cadillac at 20.75 improving its position from fourth to third.
