When you’ve just pulled into the left lane on the Autobahn to overtake the Bulgarian truck in the middle lane and you see a BMW when you look in the rear-view mirror, it’s a Pavlovian reflex to quickly get back into the middle lane. Otherwise there is a high probability that you will be punished from behind with a jostle and flashing lights. Is that because, say, a BMW M3 has more horsepower on average than a VW Touran? Or because BMW drivers are simply duller than other motorized road users?
A study, if you like to call it that, from Great Britain seems to confirm the latter assumption. The used car comparison website “Scrap Car Comparison”, famous for its neuropsychological expertise, had 2,000 drivers take an intelligence test. From this, she created an intelligence ranking with a cross-reference to 22 car brands that the test subjects drive. Accordingly, Skoda (intelligence quotient 99), Suzuki (98.09) and Peugeot drivers (97.79) are the smartest on the road. At the bottom are BMW (91.68), Fiat (90.14) and Land-Rover (88.58). So all clichés confirmed? BMW equals idiot equals racer?
Well, first of all there is no real outlier, all tested are within the normal IQ spectrum, between 85 and 115 points. Besides, Fiat and Land Rover drivers aren’t exactly notorious for headlight flashing orgies. In addition to BMW drivers, this is more familiar from Mercedes drivers, who, however, end up in a respectable 8th place with an IQ of 94.74. Porsche and Ferrari don’t even come up. The whole thing teaches us, above all, to treat intelligence studies from junk car online dealers with caution. This would also keep the feeling of intellectual (and moral) superiority intact with the underpowered VW Touran owner. In the IQ ranking, Volkswagen drivers end up fourth from last (92.25) – just one ahead of BMW.
Read previous episodes of the column here. You can find more good news here.