Location. Location. Location. The mantra of real estate agents may work for discussing the prevalence of fatal, drunk driving accidents across this country. A recent analysis by NerdWallet of the cities with the greatest number of fatal, alcohol-related traffic crashes and the affect a DUI has for motorists in that city on their insurance rates found a remarkably arbitrary pattern emerges.

Beyond that fact that in the top 25, only Spokane, Washington is north of the midsection of the nation, but geography appears to have little to do with the distribution of these types of drunk driving car accidents.

For instance California contains the most dangerous city in the survey, San Bernardino, and three other cities in the top 25 most dangerous. This might lead you to conclude that, in general, living in California carries a high-risk for involvement in an alcohol-related fatal accident.

Until you note the safest city in the survey, Moreno Valley, is also in California; along with 10 other cities with the fewest number of fatal DUI accidents.

NerdWallet also compared how much insurance rates increased after a DUI and found that there were extreme variations, with Omaha residents paying an additional 3.76 percent, while drivers in Fayetteville, North Carolina would see a 157.82 percent increase.

Columbia, Missouri did not show in the list of cities, but St. Louis was number 18 and Kansas City was number 20. But even cities that close had a wide disparity in costs. A DUI in Kansas City would lead to an increase in 21.27 percent, while in St. Louis, your insurance rates would increase by 32.03 percent.

Drunk driving causes $199 billion in damages every year, and in 2010, it killed 10,322 motorists, so even if you live in Omaha, you should do everything you can to avoid a drunk driving accident, because the risk of fatality is high and you potentially could become one of the 10,000 no longer care about insurance rates.

Source: Nerdwallet.com, “The Most Dangerous Cities: DUIs, Deaths and Your Insurance,” John Kuo, July 21, 2014