I've been with the same auto insurance provider for about three years now, but that doesn't stop me from shopping around every six months to see if I can get a better deal.

I can say, with confidence, that Allstate has never been in my top three in terms of affordable quotes. And now I think I know why: the company needs to overcharge us to pay for ridiculously bad studies like its annual Allstate America's Best Driver's Report that was just released.

How else can you explain the following "findings"?

* Tucson is this country's 20th-safest community, and somehow the safest among all mid-size (population 500K-750K)

* Phoenix is the safest U.S. city with more than a million people.

* Mesa is the safest one with a population of 250-500K.

This is apparently the ninth straight year Phoenix has been the safest "big" city for driving. Whether this includes the myriad of freeways in Maricopa County, which based on tweets from the Arizona Department of Transportation are almost in a perpetual state of crash-related gridlock, is unknown.

And maybe Tucson's info is based on summer driving, when there are no college students or snowbirds here. You know, when people are much less likely to drive because their hands will burn on the steering wheel?

In fact, the way Allstate comes up with its rankings doesn't seem clear. It says they're based on insurance claims submitted and processed during a set time period, but considering the number of instances where people I know have gotten little dings and didn't report it, this approach seems fundamentally flawed.

Maybe it's based only on claims made to Allstate. And if that's the case, since I mentioned before how expensive Allstate's rates have been when I've looked them up, maybe the nine people in Arizona who have Allstate just don't ever drive their cars.

In case you were wondering, No. 1 on the list is Fort Collins, Colo. In case you were on the fence about moving to that college town and needed something to push you in one direction or another.