Also people may be thinking of “better than average” as ” fewer dangerous maneuvers per mile driven than the average across all drivers”, for which “I have to take evasive action to avoid a collision with other drivers far more often than they have to do so for me” is a reasonable estimate. And by that standard, if there are a few egregiously bad drivers, that may mean that almost everyone else is above average (not above median, but above average).
Yes, when it comes to ordinary driving situations, there’s only so good you can get, if you can get from A to B without trouble, without annoying and/or scaring your passengers or other people on the road, it’s hard to do noticeably better. It’s hard to get too much above the median; the 80th percentile driver won’t seem that different from the 50th percentile driver. But, you can be really bad and drag the average down. Thus, the average is below the median, ergo most people (most drivers, anyway) are above average drivers. (Even assuming we are using some identical, objective scale, which, as jefftk points out, is not going to be the case.)
Also people may be thinking of “better than average” as ” fewer dangerous maneuvers per mile driven than the average across all drivers”, for which “I have to take evasive action to avoid a collision with other drivers far more often than they have to do so for me” is a reasonable estimate. And by that standard, if there are a few egregiously bad drivers, that may mean that almost everyone else is above average (not above median, but above average).
Yes, when it comes to ordinary driving situations, there’s only so good you can get, if you can get from A to B without trouble, without annoying and/or scaring your passengers or other people on the road, it’s hard to do noticeably better. It’s hard to get too much above the median; the 80th percentile driver won’t seem that different from the 50th percentile driver. But, you can be really bad and drag the average down. Thus, the average is below the median, ergo most people (most drivers, anyway) are above average drivers. (Even assuming we are using some identical, objective scale, which, as jefftk points out, is not going to be the case.)