We all think the other guy is a lousy driver. What’s odd, is that at least one out of five times. According to an article in Media Post a new report from the2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test we are correct in our assessment. At that is before we delve into our biases in the way we rate our fellow drivers. Add in some of the more obvious and extenuating factors and a great many of us should never be anywhere behind a wheel. Quite a few in fact shouldn’t be allowed to pull a little red wagon, yet alone power a three thousand pound automobile.
The recent report from the 2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test contends that one in five drivers, nearly 38 million drivers in all would flunk the written driver’s test, if it were given today. The test incorporated basic driving questions that were culled from the driving manuals in the fifty states. Nothing too arcane or esoteric. Just stuff you maybe need to know before you head off for your bag of Doritos and double Mocha Latte with your cellphone in your ear and your makeup in your lap.
Okay, so maybe in addition to the twenty basic questions there were some other, more directed questions. There were questions related to the texting while driving. You know, difficult interrogations that are only slightly less challenging than reading the fat content in a Denny’s Grand Slam. Questions, from what I gleaned, like whether or not you should duck your head back into the rear seating area for a quick peak at the monitor where Finding Nemo is preventing your kids from beating each other with their Young Einstein action heroes.
The study indicates that a number of licensed Americans continue to lack knowledge of basic rules of the road; the national average score decreased to 76.2% this year from 76.6% in 2009. No need to convince me we are dumbing down. About 85% could not identify the correct action to take when approaching a steady yellow traffic light. Many drivers remained confused by safe following distances. This would require math, not a strong suit as of late. Hell, we can’t even estimate correctly how much oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico on a daily basis. Small chance we can estimate how many feet it takes to stop a car. And then there is the matter of reading, actually understanding the questions that were being asked. Other studies report that fifty percent of our citizens are functionally illiterate. Perhaps we should have left our more serious reading to the dinosaurs who lived with us in domestic harmony a mere 6,500 years ago.
The drivers in some states did better than the drivers in others. Kansas may not have grasped entirely the radical theory of Evolution, but at least as a state it came in first on on the written driver’s test with an average score of 82.5%. New York State finished last with a 70% average score. That means three out of ten drivers in the Empire State should always be taking the subway. In general, drivers in the Northeast may not be as well informed about driving regulations as their Midwestern counterparts. The Northeast had the lowest average test scores (74.9%) and had the highest failure rate (25.1%). The Midwest region had the highest average test scores (77.5%) and the lowest failure rates (11.9%).
Not surprisingly, the older the driver, the higher the score. The aged are still able to read, which is probably their greatest advantage. Males over age 45 earned the highest average test score. Males also outperformed females overall in terms of average score (78.1% male versus 74.4% female) and failure rates (24% female versus 18.1% male). I suppose the one caveat about the vaunted elderly drivers is that you can also see him driving down the street with his turn signal flashing and a shopping bag perched on the roof of his car. Then it might be wise to think differently.
As for female drivers, overall, a significantly higher percentage of females than males reported engaging in the following distracting situations: conversation with passengers, selecting songs on an iPod or CD/adjusting the radio, talking on a cell phone, eating, applying make-up and reading. We are talking multi-tasking. Not always easy at sixty miles an hour. And then every once in awhile you do need a hand on the steering wheel, whether you want to or not. The other day I watched a woman in an SUV while she juggled muffin, coffee, makeup and cell phone, while trying to negotiate the traffic in Beverly Hills. It was almost an art form, until her one angry bite severed the muffin so it fell out of her mouth and into her lap. The look on her face was priceless.
George Carlin used to comment in his comedy act that the driver poking along ahead of you and who won’t let you pass is an imbecile. On the other hand, the driver whipping around your slow and sorry ass and blazing on up the highway, well that driver is a maniac. Everyone else, I suppose, is somewhere in between. And where is in between? Cutting corners so tightly that they clip the car in the left turn lane who was just sitting there waiting for the light to change. Trying to figure out how to parallel park sometime before the second coming. Or not knowing that four wheel drive can help you drive through the ice and snow, but it doesn’t assist much in the way of stopping.
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This report may go a long way to explaining the forty thousand people who die every year in car wrecks, and the couple, few million who are injured. These figures are actually down from a decade ago, but you can attribute that more to the safety of the vehicles than our collective driving prowess. I suppose, if you want to get picky, you can also remove from the list the false claims of injury and incapacitation that are mounted to sustain the driver-lawyer-quack doctor menage a’ trois. Most accidents are not of the gnarly paralyzing and dismembering type that will get you a prime spot on the late night commercials sponsored by your local ambulance chaser.
Now bear in mind, the GMAC Insurance is just that…an insurance entity. Their job is to sell insurance to drivers. This is where their money is. And despite the fact that they need and want to sell as much car insurance as possible, they are contending that one in five drivers shouldn’t be behind the wheel. I would think this is a conservative estimate. Should we ever get realistic about these estimates, auto sales would plummet even further, insurance policies would go wanting, and the country would have to actually do something about viable public transportation. Ancillary benefits would mean less of a dependence on oil, and possibly in urban centers you could actually breathe the air. We can’t have that.
But we all know there is no such thing as reality anymore. Pragmatism is a thing of the past. If we had common sense, knowing the destruction they cause from distracted driving, we would be draconian in enforcing laws about cellphone use in the car. In my humble opinion, instead of some measly fine, for first offense they shove the phone where the sun won’t shine, and for the second offense, they remove it with a chainsaw. But I am being moderate here. Oprah Winfrey is spending real bucks on commercials where she is dragging out the victims and survivors of victims killed by distracted drivers. She admonishes us about using driving and cellphone use, and she is a national icon. Tears fall. Voices tremble. This is Oprah., for god’s sake. Everyone adores her. Everyone listens to her. Except when she tells us that when you are driving put down the damn cellphone. Then even Oprah is a just another pain in the ass.
Perhaps it is wise to use the GMAC Insurance estimates as a base figure and take a closer look. By utilizing some of the GMAC survey questions we can start to approach the truth. On the survey, only five percent admitted to texting while driving. So we are not only a nation of lousy drivers, we are also a nation of liars. Couple that with the fact that, according to reports, fifty percent can’t read and understand the survey anyway, so there answers may be more guess work than actual comprehension. Add into this mix those out there who are driving without a license. There are more than a few. So this group wasn’t even asked to take the test. And if you still think it is only a mere twenty percent of the driving population that shouldn’t be behind the wheel, I have one final suggestion. Take a trip to your local DMV. Look around. Then tell me how safe you feel with some of these people motoring down our highways.
By no means does this make us the worse drivers in the world. Americans are merely the worst drivers in the United States. Anyone who has driven anywhere else knows the tribulations of, say, the Indian National Highways, or the vagaries of traffic rules in South America. We can’t all be Canadians, after all. Even in the South of France, unless you demonstrate you are committed to running over pedestrians, it is nearly impossible to get from here to there. And these are places where they have some semblance of highways. Or paved streets. There are many parts of this world where even the Yak is ill informed to who has the right of way.
And then, despite our whining and sniping, we Americans are pretty much a tough breed. Come some national holiday where perseverance and John Wayne’s rectitude are compulsory, before we head out on the highway with a six pack of beer, and a bevy of off-road vehicles trailing behind our four miles per gallon bargain RV. We are a nation that meets its challenges. Well, sort of.
Well, there are many challenges ahead of us. The least of which is being able to read the driving manual. As John Kennedy implored as President, about our reaching the moon in ten years, we have to continue moving forward. Which is fine with me. As long as we don’t have to drive there.
For the curious sort, you can take the 2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test by clicking this link.
