I see so many YouTube videos of people running blatantly red lights and getting in accidents or other videos of people stopped and gunning it backwards, hitting something, then they put it in drive and launch full speed forwards and hit something else. What is going through these peoples mind? I just don’t get how there is such a high quantity of these videos.
My city’s DPW recently performed 2 traffic studies as part of their pedestrian plan.
One was driver yield rates at unsignalized crosswalks. The results of this study indicated that of the 825 yielding oppurtunities observed, drivers yielded only 173 times (aka, 79% of drivers failed to yield in violation of state law).
The other was a speed study. Of the 35 observed roads, all 35 had a measured median speed that exceeded the speed limit. 34 of the 35 had measured average speeds that exceeded the speed limit…
Based on these findings, An overwhelming majority of drivers fail to abide by basic traffic laws. I would argue that breaking basic traffic laws makes one a terrible driver, so yes. A large majority (like 79%) are terrible.
More than that, look at the number of drivers who fail to follow turn signal laws or speed limits. It’s gotta be hard to find more than a handful of people who follow the basic traffic laws.