Should an IQ test be included in the drivers license test?

Great idea. I think we should adopt a European model where it is much harder to get a license.

I think it would take more than an IQ test. A person can be highly intelligent but unable to make appropriate snap decisions. Maybe drivers need to be retested more frequently.

Why limit it to driver’s license tests? It should also be used for:
-Cinemas
-Libraries
-Public Transportation (When the subway is full, DON’T FUCKING GET IN.)
-Supermarkets
-Restaurants
-Breathing

I don’t think an IQ test would help. Controls in cars that were self-directing would help. Program them to always follow the rules of the road.

Give police the ability to ticket people for being stupid, and can loose their license if they get so many

Not an IQ test, but we could have a harder road test, and require more driving time with an instructor before being eligible to take the test. But, I guess that costs a lot of money?

I don’t know if the requirements are much different here in TN than other states I have lived in, but I hear more ignorance of traffic law here than anywhere else I have lived. And, I do mean hear, meaning during a conversation people totally clueless the left lane on the interstate is the passing/fast lane, and admitting they purposely don’t signal, or only signal when someone is behind them. All sorts of ridiculousness I won’t bore you with here.

A yearly written rules of the road test and eye test might be worth the aggravation in the DMV offices if it turned out safer street driving and riding. What frightens me is watching our dealership guests who come in to service their cars, so many of these people can barely move that I wonder about their reaction times and ability to see around them comfortably.

You see this is just support for Google’s self driving car. Stricter driving standards put in place, and if you can’t pass them, take mass transit or get a robot car.

@Michael_Huntington Add parenting and pet ownership to that list.

Not an I.Q. test but possibly both a “written” test and a road test every four years when you renew your license. I got my first driver’s license when I was 16 and didn’t have to take a road test because I took driver’s ed, just had to take the written test. I have lived in four different states and each time I have moved I just had to surrender my license from the other state and the new state gives me a license.

And every time I have had to get a new license in the state I moved to or renew my license in any of those states, in almost 40 years of driving, I have never been required to take any kind of road test or another written test, since the age of 16. Apart from my relatively clean driving record, these DMVs really have no idea whether I know how to drive or not. All they know is that I am pretty good at not running into things and not getting tickets.

But, as mentioned, in almost 40 years of driving I have never been required to take a road test and have taken a written test only once. Maybe more should be required of people who drive cars.

I think we need an IQ test for a parenting license first.

And one for voting, too!

I don’t think an IQ test has anything to do with it. It’s the driver’s test they need to pass. And if they passed it, then they are entitled. It’s not the system’s fault if they don’t carry through on what they are supposed to do as drivers.

I personally believe that cars should only be issued to people who have faced Jean Claude Van Damme in battle, and have emerged victorious.

@Symbeline Not Chuck Norris?

I’m afraid not. Chuck Norris having most of his cred because of World of Warcraft, played mostly by people who don’t own cars, isn’t a good enough requirement.

Nope do like some other countries. It was some time ago and I don’t know if it still applies but in Japan you had to pay a steep price for your license. I think in japan they charge about 3000 dollars to go to driving school to get their license and then they are on probation for about 2 years. I don’t know if its a law but if we did something like that then people wouldn’t be so anxious to piss their licences away and would drive with more care.

I don’t know about IQ, but a common sense test would be pretty damn helpful. Testing response times, too.

I think you’d be better off running a Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist, Revised (PCL-R) before the driving test. Then you’d know if you wanted to let them any where near a public road.

If I were a driving instructor i’d secretly install an airbag remote control & whenever my “client” displayed clear signs of head-dickery, BAM!!
That’ll teach them some road sense or at least make them pee in the pants, either scenario works for me.

My US drivers license is useless here in Norway. A common sense test would be much more helpful. I know far too many high IQs that have no common sense. They don’t let anyone under 18 drive cars here.

Spacial recognition and risk assessment is not developed in the human brain at 16. In males, it develops even later than girls. Essentially, their minds can’t assess how quickly a car is advancing at them. It has nothing to do with IQ. It disappears as we age as well. I see NOTHING wrong with retesting old people or having concerned doctors write reports to the local DOMV.

Getting and keeping a license is way too easy. In my humble (cough) opinion, the car sucks. Make it absurdly-tough to get a license and make it easy to get around without one. Re-design our communities so the car appears to be an absurdity. Ubiquitous public transportation, etc. (ok, I’m done dreaming)

High IQ/book smarts don’t translate into “good driver,” necessarily.

I’m smart but it has taken me forever to become a decent driver.

I think a probational period with a special sticker or license plate is a good idea. If you get a certain number of violations within that period, you have to take driving school and keep the probational license for another set period of time. At some point (?) you lose your license if you prove incapable of learning and following the guidelines.

The sticker would be so other drivers and the police know too watch these drivers more carefully.

Maybe not an IQ test, but an Emotional Maturity test. Or maybe they have some type of simulator test in which temptations are thrown at you. They put you in the simulator and a phone starts ringing, a guy starts tailgating you, another guy starts weaving back and forth in front of you, a fake kid in the back seat starts whining, a guy in the car next to you starts playing really loud rap music, another fake person cuts you off, another fake person doesn’t let you merge into the lane, another fake person in front of you won’t turn off his signal, it starts fake raining, another fake guy flashes his lights at you, another fake guy flips you off.

They would test your reaction to all of these things to see if you have a propensity for road rage or simple stupidity.

@Kardamom C’mon, leave us road ragers alone! Sometimes you just have to flip the bird.

Talk about road rage – sometimes it can be the wrong person getting angry.

I came up to a 4 way stop and stopped. I saw a car on the right approaching the intersection and made the assumption they were stopping. (I know the whole thing about assuming things making an….). Anyway, I pull into the intersection and the other car ran up on the curb avoiding me because they didn’t stop. The driver immediately started screaming at me (scared the heck out of me) and started following me, screaming out the car window. I was a block away from home but too scared to go there, so I drove randomly around heading in the general direction of the police department. When I pulled up in front of the PD the other driver finally drove away.

Actually, like in sports, the best drivers are the ones who can rely most on their unconsciousness. As long as you have to think and perform complex reasoning all the time, you are more likely to fail. So what matters is experience with hundreds of special traffic situations.

HELL YES. What a wonderful idea! Too many dumb fucks behind the wheels these days.

I don’t think I.Q. tests would be all that helpful anyway. Really, how smart do you have to be to figure out what you’re supposed to do when you encounter a STOP sign? They’re pretty good sized signs and they’re red, so they’re hard to miss and they say STOP on them.

Even my dog understands the command: SIT and I know STOP has one more letter than SIT, so I’m thinking you really only need to be slightly smarter than my dog, and I love her to death, and I really hate to say this, but she is not the brightest bulb in the box, in order to figure out that when you come to a STOP sign you are supposed to S-T-O-P. It’s pretty cut and dry.

No.

As most policemen have to drive.