The driving experience is different for everyone. It depends upon where you live and what you drive. Some people love a nice long drive. Others hate every minute of it. It can vary greatly depending on whether you're riding with someone pleasant, or a car full of kids doing their best to be bratty.

Father with two kids travel by car on sea vacation
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It's hard to be objective when it comes to driving. Fortunately, Wallethub has done the research for us.

Wallethub's Best/Worst States to Drive In

Their research on driving was based on a number of factors. It included the amount of time spent sitting in traffic. The quality of the roads and average gas prices factor in also.

After crunching all the numbers, Wallethub came up with this map of how the states ranked.

Source: WalletHub

It turns out Texas is the 7th best state to drive in. This is despite the fact that Texas ranked 20th in Cost of Ownership and Maintenance, 40th in traffic and infrastructure, and 14th in Safety.  Yet Texas racks up points in the Access to Vehicles and Maintenance category.

Other positives for Texas drivers,  we're 5th for the fewest days with precipitation. That's great since windshield wipers aren't cheap. However, at certain times of the year, the bugs are so thick along Texas roads, that accident rates increase due to decreased visibility caused by splatting.

There are some other factors Wallethub missed when it comes to driving in Texas.  For example, we're tops in car-armadillo collisions. While hitting an armadillo only rarely causes any real damage, the sound of the crunch can be very traumatizing. In fact, they considered a Farmer's commercial for covering post-armadillo collision therapy.

In far West Texas, trying to yield the right of way to tumbleweeds can also be difficult.

In my informal poll of swerving drivers, Texas is definitely number one. There are so many things to swerve for like a sudden Buc-ee's or Whataburger after a long empty stretch of Texas road.

Driving in Texas can definitely make your brown eyes blue with bluebonnets. All in all, I would have to agree with Wallethub. Driving in Texas can be a great experience. Truly, the scenery is breathtaking from El Paso to Beaumont.

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LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

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