Road safety/Overestimation of skill

There are many sources which lead to the conclusion that drivers routinely overestimate their own skill, and none of which I am aware that show anything different. This is consistent with the psychological concept of or superiority bias.


 * A survey of British motorists found that:
 * 40% rated the overall standard of driving as bad but only 2% rated their own driving as bad
 * 24% rated the overall standard of driving as good, but 75% rated their own standard as good
 * An attempt to research ways of correcting drivers' overestimate of their skills failed due to the unwillingness of drivers to accept even the most obvious driving errors.
 * A survey of motorway drivers found that:
 * on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (good), they rated themselves as an average 3.9 with other drivers being rated as 2.7.
 * 39% admitted having "nodded off" on the motorway
 * one third underestimated safe stopping distances.
 * Up to 80% of drivers surveyed rate themselves "above average" on a number of important characteristics.
 * Study subjects were asked about their competence as drivers in relation to a group of drivers. The results showed that a majority of subjects regarded themselves as more skillful and less risky than the average driver in each group respectively.

I have some more sources on order, but everything I can find essentially says the same thing: most drivers consider themselves to be better than most other drivers, to an extent that is not consistent with any plausible distribution of skill (if such could be proposed without violating ). Whether this is due to their overestimation of their own skill, their falsely low perception of the skill of others, or a bit of both, is not always clear, but the hypothesis indicates a bit of both.