Formula 1 drivers are widely considered the best drivers in the entire world, and for good reason. Surely, an F1 driver should still have no problem passing a written U.S. driver’s test, right? How hard could it be? As it turns out, extremely hard. None of the ten F1 drivers in this BuzzFeed video passed a relatively simple ten-question test.
All of them got the first question right about proper parallel parking technique. Most understood that it’s never legal to drive off the road to pass another vehicle, but not everyone. (I imagine rally drivers would all get this one wrong.) Who has the right-of-way when two cars arrive at an intersection with stop signs at the same time also caused some confusion, partly because some of the drivers are from countries that drive on the other side of the road.
One question they all should have gotten right is what to do when the car starts skidding on a slippery road. Charles Leclerc made the excellent point that he reacts to this naturally, and it’s hard to stop and think it through. However, he was one of only two drivers to give the correct answer: steer in the direction you want the front wheels to go. The others said brake slowly and keep the wheel straight, which is a great recipe for a crash.
Local laws and language barriers
Some of their mistakes are understandable for drivers not from the United States. The “divided highway ends” sign stumped most of them, none of whom are American. Some of them didn’t understand the word “intersection” in the stop sign question. They all speak English fairly well, but it is a word that doesn’t come up when discussing a track layout. A question about rubbernecking also confused some for the same reason.
Another issue was our Imperial units of measurement. A question about the speed limit when crossing an uncontrolled railroad crossing used both feet and miles per hour, which is difficult for anyone used to the metric system. So was the question about how many feet away from oncoming traffic should you switch from high beams to low beams, though I personally don’t agree with the “correct” answer of 500 feet. I turn them off as soon as I see any oncoming traffic, as do automatic high beams.
Eight out of ten correct answers were required to pass, and none of the F1 drivers got that many right. It’s possible that F1 drivers aren’t so good after all, but the way this test was set up, I think it has more to do with local terminology and units of measurement than driving knowledge or skill. I’m sure they’d all pass the test easily with just a little bit of study.
