Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

It's not just your gut telling you that drivers in the Las Vegas Valley are more prone to fender-benders than commuters elsewhere. It's the statisticians.

Drivers in the cities of Las Vegas and North Las Vegas are more likely to get into car wrecks than their commuting peers in Henderson and other major cities in the Southwest, a new study found.

The Allstate Insurance Co. review of its claims data from 2004 and 2005, to be released this morning, found Las Vegans on average wrecked once every 7.8 years, making them 27.5 percent more likely to crash than the average American, who does so once every decade.

Among the nation's 200 largest cities, Las Vegas ranked 170th and North Las Vegas -- where drivers were almost 23 percent more likely to crash than the national norm, wrecking every 8.2 years -- placed 154th, the study said.

"It really doesn't shock me," trooper Kevin Honea of the Nevada Highway Patrol said Tuesday of the findings. "We have a lot of crashes here.

"Everybody's on their cell phone. Everybody's just way too aggressive and in a hurry," Honea said.

Authorities weren't sure why Henderson drivers weren't as quick to trade paint as their valley peers. They were only 6 percent more likely to wipe out than the national norm, with a wreck once every 9.4 years, ranking 88th, the study found.

But all valley drivers were worse than commuters in other sprawling Southwestern boom towns with scores of newcomers, new roads and road work.

Drivers were less crash-prone in Phoenix (where drivers went 9.7 years between crashes, ranking 75th), Salt Lake City (9.6 years, 77th) and Albuquerque (9.6 years, 78th), according to the study.

"It's definitely a discrepancy we noticed," Pat Elliott, an Allstate spokeswoman, said Tuesday. "The cities are similar in their makeup in a lot of ways. Why the discrepancy is, I don't know."

Las Vegas also slipped from an earlier Allstate study that looked at crash data from 2002 and 2003, when Las Vegas drivers crashed once every 8.2 years.

"Las Vegas drivers, in general, are far too aggressive," Honea said. "I can't say we're rude drivers, but we're very inconsiderate."

Among those inconsiderate acts is tailgating, Honea said, which plays a role in three of every four wrecks his department investigates.

"It's almost an epidemic down here, people thinking they need to drive hood ornament to license plate," Honea said.

Drivers who pay lax attention to their driving due to cellular phones, compact disc players and other distractions are thought to be large crash-causers both locally and nationwide.

"That's a problem in every community," Elliott said. "Particularly with cell phone users."

Said Honea: "If you're driving and talking on your cell phone, you're exhibiting all the same characteristics as a drunk driver. You can't maintain a travel lane. You can't maintain a steady speed."

Elsewhere in Nevada, Reno drivers were found to be among the nation's best, bettering the national norm by wrecking once every 10.7 years and placing 36th, the study found.

Nationwide, the safest drivers were found in Sioux Falls, S.D., where the average driver goes 14.3 years between accidents, the study found.

Drivers were most likely to wreck in Springfield, Mass., where commuters go less than five years between accidents, the study found.