A recent study contends that Idaho has the second-rudest drivers in the nation.

Shanna Kiedrowski and Janna Birt, both of Coeur d’Alene, disagree. The pair from Southern California moved to North Idaho just in time for the 1996 ice storm.

“That was the first time I’d ever seen snow,” said Kiedrowski, who was a teenager at the time.

She learned to drive in Idaho but has experience driving in many states, including California — a state that did not even crack the top 10 for rudest drivers.

“[Californians] are the scariest, rudest drivers in the whole world,” she said. “Idaho has the nicest drivers.”

Insurance quotes comparison website Insurify Insights referred to a database of more than 2 million insurance applications, where drivers disclosed information including past accidents and driving infractions.

Rude driving behavior was defined as failure to yield violations, failure to stop violations, improper backing, passing where prohibited, tailgating, street racing and hit and runs.

For each state, Insurify’s data team calculated the proportion of drivers with one or more of these violations on their record. The states with the highest proportion of those drivers were ranked as the rudest.

In Idaho, 47.5 drivers out of 1,000 were cited for rude driving behavior. The national average was 29.6 per 1,000 drivers.

The only state with a higher proportion of rude drivers was Virginia, with 48.5 out of 1,000. The most polite states were Kentucky, Mississippi and Vermont, each with between 10 and 17 drivers per 1,000 cited for one or more rude driving behaviors.

According to Insurify’s study, rates of tailgating in Idaho were 4.89 times the national average. Idaho drivers are reportedly 2.6 times more likely than average to commit a failure to yield to a pedestrian violation and 2.07 times as likely to fail to yield the right of way to another driver.

However, Birt said that in her experience, 90 percent of drivers in Idaho are considerate.

“The other 10 percent came from somewhere else,” she added with a laugh.

Driving in California can be scary, Birt said, especially in high-traffic areas.

“They’re kamikaze pilots,” she said.

Kiedrowski speculated that population size might contribute to rude driving. She recently drove to Boise and noticed that drivers were “a little more aggressive down there.”

“When you go to big cities, courtesy goes out the window, even in Seattle,” she said.

She prefers the driving conditions in North Idaho.

“We like our little neck of the woods,” she said.