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You may have debated it while at dinner, on the phone, or even behind the wheel: that your city has the worst drivers in Saskatchewan.
If you argued it’s Saskatoon, then you’re right — and we have the proof. That is, so long as you’re basing it off of where you’re most likely to get into a serious car accident.
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Using collision data from SGI and population estimates from Statistics Canada, between 2020 to 2024 Saskatoon had the highest collision rate per 1,000 people compared to six other Saskatchewan cities: Regina, Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, Yorkton, Swift Current, and North Battleford.
In each of those five years, Saskatoon ranked number one, having a higher rate of crashes than any other major city. Regina didn’t even always place within the top three.
Causes behind the collisions
These results don’t come as a surprise to Kwei Quaye, SGI’s vice-president of traffic safety services.
It’s “been a similar trend for quite of number of years now, in terms of the number of collisions by city in Saskatchewan,” he said about Saskatoon’s top crash spot.
According to SGI’s data, the top contributing factors behind all the collisions in Saskatoon between 2020 to 2024 were road conditions, following too closely, failure to yield, driver inattention and distraction, and passing or improper lane usage.
They represent the most frequently checked items by police responding to an accident, outranking more than 30 other potential factors.
Road conditions mean there was something on the road that, “might have contributed to the crash,” Quaye said. That could be potholes or slippery surfaces from ice or rain.
While the common attribution of driver inattention is cell phone usage, Quaye said it can also mean someone was eating, talking, or even reaching for something in the back seat when the accident happened.
It encompasses anything that’s seen as potentially contributing, “to a situation where the driver was distracted from the driving task,” he said.
Those five factors are also the top ones in Regina for the same time period, but their order changes for the Queen City.
While speeding isn’t included in either Saskatoon or Regina’s top list, when you combine the factors of exceeding the speed limit and driving too fast for the conditions, speed ranks as the sixth most common contributor behind accidents in both cities.
When asked why Saskatoon has so many more collisions, Quaye said it comes down to a combination of reasons.
The Bridge City has more people, so there’s more vehicles, but it’s also about the way land is used in Saskatoon.
It, “results in what we believe is a higher number of interactions,” between cars, increasing the “probability that you have two vehicles in the same spot where they shouldn’t be, leading to a collision,” he said.
According to Quaye, Saskatchewan’s long winters don’t help either since the seasonal conditions can exacerbate the chances of two cars colliding — although that reason would hold true in any of the seven cities.
Worst intersections in Saskatoon
The intersection where Saskatoon drivers are most likely to end up in an accident is Circle Drive and Avenue C North, which saw an average of 57 collisions a year between 2020 to 2024.
In order, the next four worst intersections are:
- Circle Drive and Preston Avenue, with an average of 38 collisions.
- College Drive and Preston Avenue, with an average of 37 collisions.
- Confederation/Fairlight and 22nd Street, with an average of 37 collisions.
- Diefenbaker Drive and 22nd Street, with an average of 34 collisions.
Muhammad Islam, owner of Prairie Driving School, said most accidents happen because someone misunderstands or misreads someone else’s actions. (Marija Robinson/650 CKOM)
For anyone who’s familiar with driving in Saskatoon, these intersections likely don’t come as a surprise. Especially not for driving instructor Muhammad Islam.
He owns Prairie Driving School and has been teaching people behind the wheel since 2019.
During an hour-long drive with Islam through the city, he pointed out the worst areas in the city to be a driver, including College Drive and Preston Avenue.
He said the issue there is people coming into the city are entering at a higher speed, whereas cars leaving are going slower. It makes turning left a challenge.
“They cannot judge how far the vehicle is, and should I turn left or should I wait? That judgment is not very accurate most of the time,” Islam said.
For Confederation and 22nd Street, he said with people going around a curve, it hinders visibility.
Stricter driving tests not the answer
According to Islam, part of the issue is that Saskatchewan’s road tests only last 10 to 15 minutes.
In that span of time, he said a person can do everything right even if they’re not a great driver, letting people pass even if, “they still have room to improve.”
Islam said Saskatoon is growing and so is the amount of traffic, but the road tests haven’t adapted to the change.
Making it safer on Saskatoon’s roads isn’t about implementing more rigorous testing for new drivers, Quaye said.
He explained how SGI is constantly reviewing the routes used to test drivers in Saskatoon and Regina, but the corporation’s approach is “more holistic” than just focusing on who’s behind the wheel.
According to Quaye, SGI tries to look at infrastructure, seeing if there’s issues with a particular location or if better enforcement is necessary. For instance, that could mean considering whether a red light camera is needed.
“We look for ways in which we can assist in making the environment as friendly as possible,” he said.
While other provinces, like Alberta and British Columbia, have age-based retesting for drivers, Saskatchewan doesn’t.
Instead, Quaye said SGI has adopted a more “risk-based” approach, rather than a mandatory one. Drivers will be tested for competency if there are medical conditions or a certain number of traffic convictions.
Even with Islam pushing for more rigorous road testing, he said even experienced drivers have room to improve.
While Islam doesn’t get road rage, he said he’s frustrated by people who don’t follow the rules of the road, because that reckless decision can end up hurting — or killing — an innocent person.
In-depth on the data
The reason for tracking five years between 2020 to 2024 is because SGI’s 2025 data won’t be available until August or September 2026.
Also, this data doesn’t account for every collision that happened in each of the seven listed cities.
Instead, it reflects accidents where at least one of the three following factors were met: the cost of damage was more than $5,000, there was an injury, and/or there was a fatality.
So, essentially, the more serious accidents.
According to Quaye, there’s no double counting in these numbers, either. If a person dies, the accident is automatically categorized as a fatal collision even if the damages don’t exceed $5,000.
It’s difficult to say whether excluding smaller-scale accidents would dramatically change the results, thereby taking Saskatoon out of top spot.
Quaye said counting collisions where there weren’t any injuries/fatalities and lower property damage costs would make a difference, “but I cannot tell you the magnitude of the difference.”
These numbers also only represent accidents that happened on public roads and were reported to SGI by the police. So, if a crash occurred in a forested area on a non-public road, for instance, Quaye said it’s not counted.
Along the same lines, the data reflects where a collision actually happened and not where the driver is from.
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