A 2020 study found that 65 percent of Americans rated themselves as of above average intelligence which, of course, couldn’t ever be true. The phenomenon of overestimating our own abilities is known to psychologists as illusory superiority, and you won’t be surprised to hear that it affects our ability to judge our own driving standards, too. In another study, 80 percent of drivers told researchers that they were more capable behind the wheel than other drivers.
But damn the math, that one just has too be true, right? I mean, other people are just so terrible at driving. If they’re not driving too fast, they’re driving too slow, or they’re looking at their phone or doing their makeup.
Some people drive too close to your bumper, and others are just so timid you practically have to ram them from behind into the traffic flow if you’ve any chance of getting out of that intersection. And don’t get me started on the idiots who park across two bays, who are too inconsiderate to signal at intersections or who drive around at night with their lights on high beam.
Related: Germany To Catch Distracted Drivers Holding Smartphones With Special Cameras
But you know the ones that really get me, it’s the ones who put the lives of innocent party at risk. The ones who drive around in the rain on bald tires or with defective brakes. No, scratch that, I’m a dog lover so the worst habit has to be leaving dogs in cars and forgetting to roll the window down a crack.
Course, that’s all just other people. Me, I’m a great driver. Not saying I’m Lewis Hamilton or anything, but I’m probably up there in the top 0.001 percent. And yeah, I haven’t forgotten about that time I caused a 26-car pileup on the freeway when I reached into the back seat for a fourth Bud, but that was the guy in front’s fault for stopping too quickly.
A recent study carried out in the UK by Vertu Motors discovered that Brits most hated habit in other drivers was tailgating, followed by failing to signal, using a phone when driving, driving with full lights on, staying in the middle lane of a motorway, taking up two spaces in a parking lot and speeding. But what do you think? Tell us what bad habit you most deplore in other drivers, and then fess up what your own worst habit is.