Survey says New Yorkers Don’t Know Much About Driving
If you had to retake the test for your driver’s license, do you think you would pass? The results from the Sixth annual 2010 GMAC Insurance National Drivers test found that nearly one in five U.S. drivers would not pass a written driver’s test if taken today (roughly 38 million licensed drivers). A pool of 5,202 drivers participated in 20 questions from state written exams that was taken from actual written Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) tests.
Kansas drivers ranked No.1 with an average of 82.3% correct, followed closely by Oregon 82.1%, South Dakota 81.2%, Minnesota 81.1%, and Iowa 80.8%. The worst drivers from New York 70.0%, New Jersey 70.5%, D.C. 71.9%, California 73.3% also were at the bottom.
Take the test here: http://tinyurl.com/62kfkl
Results Of The Survey
Key Findings
- If taken today, 18.4 percent of drivers on the road - amounting to roughly 38 million licensed Americans - would not pass a written drivers test exam.
- The national average score was 76.2 percent; a score below 70 percent is considered failing.
- Average test scores in 2010 continue to show a slight trending downward, from 76.6 percent in 2009 to 76.2 percent this year and a drop of almost 2 percent from the national average in 2008 (78.1 percent).
- With Age Comes Wisdom: The older the driver, the higher the test score. Males over 45 earned the highest average score.
- Factoring in margin for error, the average test score was significantly higher among males than females (78.1 percent male versus 74.4 percent female). Females also had a higher failure rate than males (24 percent female versus 18.1 percent male).
Regional Rankings
- After dropping to 4th place last year, Kansas regained its 2008 number 1 ranking this year (average score of 82.3 percent); New York drivers ranked last for the third time in the survey's six year history (average score of 70.0 percent).
- Kansas, Oregon, South Dakota and Minnesota are the top four ranked states with highest scores; Washington, D.C., California, New York and New Jersey ranked in the bottom four this year.
- Both New York and New Jersey have ranked in the bottom four for the last five years.
- New Jersey claims the top failure ranking in 2010 with virtually 4 of 10 New Jersey Drivers (39.9 percent) having a failing score below 70 percent, followed by New York, DC, and Louisiana all with failing scores of 31 percent or higher.
- Wisconsin, which tied with Idaho for the best score last year, dropped to number 12 this year, although its average test score fell just a little over one percent from 80.6 percent down to 79.4 percent.
- South Dakota and Oregon rank 1st and 2nd with the highest percentage of passing scores (92 percent and 91 percent, respectively).
- The Northeast had the lowest average test scores (74.9 percent) and had the highest failure rate (25.1 percent).
- The Midwest region had the highest average test scores (77.5 percent) and the lowest failure rates (11.9 percent).
- Nine states in 2010 had average test scores that were 80 percent correct or higher compared with only six states in 2009, but down from a high of 14 states in 2008.
Trouble Spots: Questions that Confused Drivers
- Seventy-three percent of drivers could not properly identify a typical safe following distance from the car in front of them.
- Eighty-five percent of drivers did not know the correct answer of what to do at a traffic light displaying a steady yellow signal (stop if it is safe to do so).
- Fortunately, similar to last year, nearly all respondents (97 percent) know what to do when an emergency vehicle with flashing lights approaches, what to do when hydroplaning and the meaning of a solid yellow line.
Survey Says: Drivers are Distracted
- In addition to the 20-question DMV exam, GMAC Insurance posed questions exploring distracting habits such as texting while driving. These findings reveal:
- Conversation with other passengers is the leading distraction while driving, with more than half of all drivers engaged in this activity (52 percent).
- Approximately, a quarter of drivers admitted to talking on a cell phone, selecting songs on an iPod or CD, adjusting the radio or eating while driving their vehicle.
- Only five percent of participants reported they text while driving.
- The following actions were reported significantly higher among females than males: engaging in conversation with passengers, selecting songs on an iPod or CD, adjusting the radio, talking on a cell phone, eating, applying make-up and reading.
