You all suck at the driving

[Porsche-O-Phile]

It's official:



http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/11/16/driving.stupid/index.html

Massachusetts finished near the bottom. Sheesh, I could have predicted that growing up there. The MA drivers suck. I figured Florida would have been worse, given how many "near-deads" and "NASCAR-wannabes" they have down there. NJ/NY? Dead last. Predictable.

I'm actually kind of surprised CA finished as high as it did. Must be northern CA offsetting all the idiots down here in SoCal and skewing the average up.



Don't drive stupid

By Blair S. Walker

Is it just your imagination, or do many of your fellow motorists lack even a rudimentary grasp of traffic laws?
art.traffic.afp.gi.jpg

One in six drivers would fail driving test if they had to take it today, a GMAC test suggests.

Well, if a test administered by GMAC Insurance is any indication, one in six people cruising our highways and byways -- roughly 36 million licensed drivers -- would flunk their driver's test if they had to take it today. Not only that, but based on the 2007 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test data the state with the most road-going dummies is New York, while the most knowledgeable ones are out West to Idaho.

"The results were pretty eye-opening to us," says Gary Kusumi, president and CEO of GMAC Insurance Personal Lines. "Not only did they indicate that there are wide differences in terms of state scores, but there were significant trends that demonstrated the general public might have forgotten must-know items from when they first took their driver's test."

"Two questions consistently sent respondents skidding into the weeds," Kusumi notes. The first has to do with the correct action to take when approaching a steady yellow traffic light (Answer: Stop if it is safe to do so.). A whopping 84 percent of respondents spun their wheels on that one. The next biggest puzzler after that question had to do with the proper following distance from a car in front of you (Answer: Two seconds).

Also of interest from the GMAC Insurance test:

• Drivers 35 and older were more likely to pass

• Illinois, Georgia, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts were the least knowledgeable states overall, with average scores under 75 percent

• Fifty-five percent of the respondents didn't know how many feet before making a left or right turn to activate their turn signals

• The national average score was 77.1 percent

"We believe that the adoption of a uniform driver curriculum will significantly improve the driving skills of Americans," says Adele Kristiansson, a spokesperson for the National Road Safety Foundation. "Some states do not require mandatory education for novice drivers, and some states require it," adds Kristiansson. "My organization is concerned because driver education is an orphaned child and it's suffering."

On the Web at www.nationalroadsafety.org, and offering free programs to the public, the National Road Safety Foundation was created in 1961 by Fraydun Manocherian, after two youthful friends were killed in automobile accidents in Westchester County, New York.

According to GMAC Insurance, 18 percent of respondents failed its National Driving Test in 2007, compared with 9 percent in 2006. The test can be taken online at www.gmacinsurance.com.

The following state rankings were released for the 2007 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test:

1. Idaho.

2. Alaska

3. Minnesota

4. Wisconsin

5. Kansas

6. Washington

7. South Dakota

8. Montana

9. Oregon

10. Iowa

11. Nebraska

12. Wyoming

13. Oklahoma

13. Indiana

13. North Carolina

16. New Mexico

17. North Dakota

18. Missouri

19. Delaware

19. Nevada

21.Vermont

22. California

23. Hawaii

24. Texas

25. Maryland

25. Alabama

27. Arkansas

28. Michigan

29. Kentucky

30. Utah

31. Ohio

31.Colorado

33. South Carolina

33.Arizona

33. Florida

36. Maine

37. New Hampshire

37. Mississippi

37. Tennessee

40. Connecticut

41. Virginia

41. Louisiana

43. West Virginia

44. Georgia

45. Illinois

46. Pennsylvania

47. Rhode Island

48. Massachusetts

48. District of Columbia

48. New Jersey

51. New York

[CJFusco]

Shenanigans. BY FAR, the worst drivers I've ever seen were in North Carolina. These people just seemed inept. We may not know the rules in CT, but we know how to handle a car

[Joeaksa]

Arizona, Texas and New Mexico would test a lot higher if they excluded all the illegals driving there. Not only do they not know how to drive in many cases, many if not most of them do not have ANY insurance, which makes it even worse.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by CJFusco

we know how to handle a caahhr

fixed the accent for you...

[The Gaijin]

I dont doubt NY is last. I will be politically correct and not say why.

But it was a written test and real world behavior behind the wheel may be very different..

[rammstein]

South Florida is the most dangerous place in America to Drive. Boston, the drivers are crazy, but in South Florida they are crazy while you are all driving 85-90mph, so the consequences are far worse.

I read that the most dangerous stretch of Interstate Highway is the part from West Palm to Miami on 95. I believe that

[CJFusco]

Originally Posted by nostatic

fixed the accent for you...

Ever been to CT? We are possibly the only accent-less peoples on the planet ( )

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by CJFusco

Shenanigans. BY FAR, the worst drivers I've ever seen were in North Carolina. These people just seemed inept....

Hey, I resemble that remark...next time, close your eyes when you're passing through, and you'll fit right in .

[Tim Walsh]

Originally Posted by KC911

Hey, I resemble that remark...next time, close your eyes when you're passing through, and you'll fit right in .

It's all the CRASHCAR fans making up for the rest of us

[Overpaid Slacker]

Look at the top 12 ferchrissakes! You'd have to try to hit something in any of those states... no freaking challenge!

Take your average taxi hack in NYC and put him in Boise; now take your best Boise hack (they have taxis in Boise, I assume) and he wouldn't last an hour in NYC traffic!

It's all the whiteys in those states that skew the average anyway. We need to ebonicize the standardized tests to remove the obvious racial bias.

JP

[Palum6o]

PA is bad because of our roads which are absolutely horrible.

[DaveE]

My part of PA is bad because the DEAD still drive here.

[Tim Walsh]

PA has roads? I thought most of the routes were just sugestions, or safefy corridors. (My wife's from about 45 minutes north of Hershey, the middle of nowhere)

[rammstein]

In PA, they don't have signs, and they don't paint the roads. Makes it interesting on a dark, snowy night. Oh yeah- they don't plow either.

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by CJFusco

Shenanigans. BY FAR, the worst drivers I've ever seen were in North Carolina. These people just seemed inept. We may not know the rules in CT, but we know how to handle a car

North Carolina?

We were just talking about how you have to be a good driver to survive in North Carolina. A bad driver just doesn't get into a fender bender there, they fly off a cliff and die.

Many roads there have 55 MPH speed limits and its up to you to drive at a safe speed. Imagine that?

For example, this road here has a 55 MPH speed limit, notice the lack of signs telling you the speed for the curve? Common sense? Driving ability?





When I first bought my vacation home up there I was having to get used to driving on the mountain roads, I was in my Dodge pickup one day driving as fast as I felt comfortable on the Smokey Mountain Expressway (It was my first time driving it and I was nervous, I was hugging the right lane trying to stay out of the way. A Toyota Corolla passed us in the left lane, in it, a 17 year old girl, with a cel phone to her ear tearing along like it was nothing threading through the twisties on the road.


If your a bad driver in North Carolina you will eventually die, same goes for drunk drivers. Try to drive drunk up there and you'll most likely just kill yourself falling off a mountain.


I cannot speak for the coastal area or the foothills, this is what I saw in the mountains.

[Aerkuld]

I have to question the wisdom of a written test as being an accurate indication of driving skill. It may be a great way to show that someone understands the laws of the road or the correct way way in which they should drive, or it may just show how good they are at reading and remembering what is written in a book. Just because they've read about what they should be doing it is no guarantee that they drive that way.
Most of the time it isn't the knowledge of the drivers manual that worries me but the complete lack of common sense and attention to the task at hand. The only way to show how well someone really drives is to sit in a car with them or watch them actually drive a car.

[Tim Walsh]

(number of accidents + number of tickets)/ total number of miles driven by all the state's drivers ?

Ok I've been scripting for way too long today.

[Drago]

There is no way WA is #6.

We've got way too many Cali-transplants up here for that to be true.

[JCF]

Notice that all the highest ranked states have wide open spaces and low (relative) populations - Hell you have to TRY to hit someone in Idaho - and what is the speed limit in Wyoming ?

Still Mass drivers do suck - Conn drivers next.

[Seric]

Try driving in an area where a good portion of the population just moved here in the last ten years whom previously had zero driving experience in their home country.