> Always remember that 50% of drivers are below average intelligence. Well...technically not in this case, no. It's usually misleading to use the median inste

> Always remember that 50% of drivers are below average intelligence. Well...technically not in this case, no. It's usually misleading to use the median instead of arithmetic mean for measuring averages in population, because you can wind up with situations where, say, 90% of people are "above average." That being said, IQ is specifically calibrated to follow a normal distribution. Ordinarily that would mean you're correct, and we can just call the arithmetic mean and median the same thing. However! The normal distribution of IQ - average 100, standard deviation 15 - includes the bottom percentiles of the population who are severely mentally impaired. These people aren't usually drivers. It follows that when you're driving, the population of drivers around you will actually skew higher in percentile. In fact, it's probably more likely that the modal driver has intelligence equal to or greater than average. Personally, I think safe driving, polite driving and technically skilled driving are all orthogonal with respect to each other and to overall intelligence. After a very serious accident years ago, I became the kind of person who will only drive at or below the speed limit. But I know several people at least as - and probably much more - intelligent than me who drive "erratically", to put it nicely. I don't think raw intelligence captures enough information to really dictate behavior here.