More on the Behaviour of Buffalo

So it's late Friday and I'm catching up on my backlog of trade rags. In the July 2005 Best's Review, a major insurance industry publication, is an article about a study done by GMAC Insurance about driver behaviour in which 5,000 licensed drivers were surveyed. Here are some high points:

• One in ten drivers in the U.S. would fail a driver's test if tested today. The most likely to fail were in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states where one in five were unable to pass a driver's test. The most knowledgeable were in the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes states, with failure rates of 1-3%.


• One in five drivers does not know that a pedestrian has the right of way at a marked or unmarked crosswalk.


• One in three drivers claims to speed up when they see a yellow light even when pedestrians are in the crosswalk.


• 60% of all drivers say they change lanes on the highway without using a signal.


• One in 10 drivers regulary drives more than 11 miles per hour over the speed limit even though 58% of all drivers feel that driving 10 miles per hour over the limit on an interstate is dangerous. I suppose these are mutually exclusive groups of people?


• 29% of drivers who drink admitted they would knowingly drive while over the legal limit "if they felt ok". It is notable that since 1997, about a third of drivers killed in passenger vehicles have had a blood alcohol concentration above 0.08% which is now illegal in every state.

There you go folks, we're sharing the road with 'em! They're drunk, fast, ignorant, don't use their signals and will probably honk at pedestrians to get out of the way as they run the yellow light! It's about time to change into my riding clothes and head on home through this steamy afternoon and treat with wary respect the creatures I share the roads with.

Be careful out there.