DAILY DIRT: You might want to reconsider these states as possible vacation sites

Daily Dirt for Tuesday, June 6, 2023

I’m a little surprised Missouri is on the list, but then I remembered you have to include St. Louis … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 629 of The Daily Dirt.

1. It’s that time of year when a lot of people are considering vacation trips, weekend getaways, etc … well, here are a few states you might want to think about twice about.

Wallethub, a personal finance company, recently released a study evaluating all 50 states for personal safety by using 53 different indicators. These were determined to be the most dangerous states to visit:

1. Mississippi–Key info bit: Ole Miss ranks dead lass in emergency preparedness and road safety. Having driven through Mississippi a few years ago I can vouch for this finding. Many of the highways and byways were in terrible condition.

2. Louisiana-Key info bit: The state has the highest homicide rate in the nation. (And don’t forget about all the ‘gators … )

3. Florida–Key info bit: The state ranks 47th in terms of road safety.

4. Arkansas–Key info bit: If you’re driving through Arkansas, it might be wise to never get out of your car. The state ranks third in the nation for both attacks per person and bullying incidence rates. Arkansas also has the fifth-highest murder rate in the country.

5. Texas–Key info bit: If you’re going to visit someone in Texas, don’t. The state ranks near the bottom in personal and residential safety.

6. Oklahoma–Key info bit: Apparently, a lot of the Sooners are not nice people. The state has one of the highest crime rates in the country.

7. Missouri–Key info bit: The Show-Me State has the second-highest crime rate in the country, but I think it’s safe to blame St. Louis for that.

8. Alabama–Key info bit: The state has the fifth highest rate of assaults per capita. Roll Tide.

9. Georgia–Key info bit: Once again, a southern state with poor roads. Georgia ranks near the bottom in road safety.

10. South Carolina–Key info bit: The state with the most fatalities per 100 million car miles traveled, and in terms of overall crime — especially its homicide rate — South Carolina ranks fifth.

My advice? Either stay home or travel to a northern state.

PUBLISHER’S RANT: Good Lord, what Yankee elitist put this list together? Oh, let’s cherry pick numbers and see if we can get people to visit the Hampton’s or Martha’s Vineyard. Kennebunkport, anyone?

South Carolina, Florida and Texas are some of my favorite spots. Missouri is my home state and the lakes and hills of The Ozarks (in both Missouri and Arkansas) are some of the most beautiful places in the country.

There are plenty of great places in Illinois and Wisconsin as well, but I don’t see the need to take a dump on The South. JRG.

2. Fun fact

This year marks to the 60th anniversary of the cellphone. But it wasn’t until about a decade later the first such item actually hit the market in the form of the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, a 2-pound behemoth that offered customers the chance to talk uninterrupted for 30 minutes (following a 10-hour charge time) for the whopping price of $3,995. The first smartphone hit the market in 1992.

3. According to interestingfacts.com, the following items were the most popular (and best-selling) gifts for the accompanying decades:

• 1950s: Cigarettes. I assume there was some sort of age limit, even back in the dark ages of the ’50s.
• 1960s: Wham-O SuperBall. If you never had one of these growing up, you really missed out. You could bounce these babies over a two-story house.
• 1970s: Stars Wars action figures. I was done with the Star Wars hoopla after the third movie and the introduction of those idiotic Ewoks.
• 1980s: Cabbage Patch dolls. What a racket these things were, but if you were a dad in the 1980s and had a daughter I’m sure you forked over some serious coin for some of these.
• 1990s: Furby. A modern-day Ewok.
• 2000s: iPod Mini:The iPod Mini (and nearly every other version of the iPod) faded into the background as faster smartphones began to evolve.

Steve Thought O’ The Day — I’m still surprised Illinois did not make the top 10 list in today’s first item. After all, we have to claim Chicago, which is little better than a northern version of St. Louis when it comes to crime. 

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. That poll, like Steve, has a clear anti-SEC bias.