Wyoming is One of the Rudest States in the Country…Wait, What?
In the past year and half since I have lived in Wyoming, I have had a pleasant experience meeting and being around Wyomingites. They are some of the nicest people I've personally had the pleasure of getting to know. However, a recent study had Wyoming ranked as of the rudest states in the country. Let's find out exactly how that happened because that seems baffling.
Zippia recently released the list of the rudest and states in the U.S. I was shocked to see that overall, Wyoming came in ranked at the 13th rudest state in the country. It was only months ago, back in January, when Wyoming came in ranked as the 5th most polite state in the country. So how did we end up on the not so nice list just a few months later?
In this particular study, the determining factors were based on the percent of rude drivers, average tip paid from customer, amount of cursing to customer service agents, and how rude the rest the U.S. thinks we are.
One of those factors, the percent of rude drivers, may have very well failed Wyoming. Back in March, we were listed as having the 5th rudest drivers in the U.S. Simply put, we don't necessarily demonstrate the greatest behavior on the road. Okay, we'll fall on that sword. Strike one.
Next was the average tip paid from a customer. Basically, they went by average percentage of the bill that we enforce for the tip. In the study, there were only 10 other states that had a higher tip percentage than Wyoming's, which was at 16.8 percent. The highest average tip in the country was at 17.3 percent. Granted, it would be nice to think that our average tips are better than what they are, but we're not that far behind on the list for this category. That one is a little misleading. I think Wyoming gets a pass on that one.
The next factor was the amount of cursing to customer service agents. Honestly, how is that even measurable? Not to mention, the link to the source for that statistic was not provided. That is not a credible statistic to include for Wyoming.
For the final factor used to determine how rude Wyoming is, they used the study that found us to be the 5th most polite state in the U.S. In the survey, 49 percent of people in Wyoming say they tend to be more polite than other Americans while just 15 percent say they tend to be more rude. Therefore, this is another one that should not serve as a valid researched statistic to hurt Wyoming's showing.
Therefore, in the end, we should really only have to take the blame for having rude drivers, and honestly, we already knew that a couple months ago, based on the research. As I mentioned before, Wyomingites are some of the nicest people I've met anywhere and I'm sticking by it. Personally, I think we should throw this study out the window and just stick with what we know, like the fact that Wyoming's relatively pretty nice, just as its people are.