How knowledgeable and safe a driver are you? You can test your grasp of the rules of the road with a cool interactive web quiz put up by GMAC Insurance, which naturally has a vested interest in safe driving.
You might even learn a fine point or two. I know I did. I missed two of the 20 questions, a disappointing result for a guy who’s supposed to be an expert on this stuff. Still, my 90 percent score handily beat the national average of 76.2 percent turned in by a scientific sample of 5,209 licensed drivers earlier this year.
That national survey gave a troubling indication that as many as 38 million U.S. drivers would flunk a written state license test these days. That’s based on the 18.4 percent of respondents who scored less than 70 percent on the online test, which was based on actual Department of Motor Vehicles exams across the country.
As we’d expect, Minnesotans did better than average in the survey, scoring 81.1 percent for fourth place in the nation, behind Kansas, Oregon and South Dakota. The worst state was New York, right on the cut line at 70 percent. At the risk of political incorrectness, I note also that men significantly outperformed women, 78.1 percent to 74.4, and nearly a quarter of the females posted failing grades. Best yet were males over 45, a demographic I proudly belong to.
I won’t tell you the questions I botched, but they weren’t the ones GMAC Insurance says were missed the most. They regarded safe following intervals and how to respond to a steady yellow traffic light.
Try the no-fee test (the advertising accompanying it isn’t even very intrusive) and let us know how you did.
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