Study declares Calgary the best city in Canada to drive in, top 10 worldwide

Calgary among world’s best cities to drive in? A survey conducted by a Germany company found Calgary to be the best city in Canada for driving and the tenth best in the world. Kathy Le has reaction to the rankings.

The world’s largest online car parts retailer has released its rankings of the best and worst cities in the world for driving, based on select criteria, and Calgary has been named the best Canadian city and the tenth best city in the world when it comes to driving.

The 2017 survey, conducted by kfzteile24, included five Canadian cities in its rankings which took into consideration factors including traffic congestion, price of fuel, parking rates, air pollution, quality of roads, incidents of road rage and collisions involving injury or death. Calgary’s ranking (10^th) placed it ahead of Montreal (13^th), Toronto (14^th), Ottawa (22^nd) and Vancouver (48^th).

Officials with the German company say they compiled a list of the 500 cities that have the most registered vehicles in the world before reducing the selection based on the availability of traffic data.

kfzteile24 released its lists of the 50 best cities to drive in and the 50 worst cities to drive in but did not release its ranking of cities that fell outside of these parameters.

Peter Smits, owner of Calgary-based A-Dash Messenger Service Ltd. spends a significant amount of time on Calgary’s roads. “On the overall, I’m quite satisfied with Calgary’s roads and streets,” said Smits. “There’s a few exceptions. The busy parts of the city at the wrongs time of the day, I won’t be there.”

On an average day, Smits drives roughly 500 kilometres in his van and has had his fair share of experiences with Calgary drivers. He says he’s not surprised by Calgary’s ranking in the kfzteile24 survey. “Generally speaking, if other drivers know your intentions they’ll let you in. Inexperience sometimes shows in other drivers.”

At the Blackfoot Truck Stop, news of the survey placing Calgary among the world’s best cities to drive in raised eyebrows.

“I don’t have any troubles but a lot of people do because half of them can’t drive,” said a visitor from Saskatchewan of driving in Calgary. “That’s what the problem is.”

Another motorist said she would have been more surprised if Calgary was not ranked ahead of Toronto and Vancouver given the population differences between the centres.

According to kfzteile24, the top five cities to drive in are:

According to kfzteile24, the top worst cities to drive in are: