The test isn't exactly brain-cramp material. Or shouldn't be. The questions are culled from the tests around the country that drivers take to get their license.

For example, the third question on the test asks what you should do at an intersection with a flashing red light.

Hint: The answer is not "stomp on the gas."

It’s a fun little exercise, for what it’s worth. The latest results, released last month, found that

-- 16.4% of drivers wouldn’t pass a written driving test if they took it today. That’s either encouraging or depressing, depending on your point of view.

-- Women were slightly more likely to fail the test than men.

-- Midwestern states had the average highest scores, and the Northeastern states the lowest.

For what it’s worth, I aced the test. It’s really not hard at all. I took it while simultaneously trying to eat a soggy cheese pizza from The Times’ wretched cafeteria, remove a stain from my shirt and answer e-mail on my beloved iPhone.

Now, let’s put on our thinking caps. What does this test really mean? Are drivers in Jersey really that stupid? Are women really bad drivers?

I refer you to the website for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, where if you comb through the stats you’ll see that the Garden State has a lower fatality rate among motorists than all but six other states. Nearly all the Northeast states have low fatality rates.

The federal statistics also show something else: Women are far less likely to be killed in an auto accident. In 2006, the latest year for which stats are available, 29,722 men were killed in wrecks versus 12,747 women, although those stats don’t show who was driving.

Wade Bontrager, the vice president of marketing for GMAC Insurance, told me last week that the company isn’t sure how to explain the discrepancy. "What we do know is a lot of accidents that we see every day could be avoided," he said.

He suspects that the reason that scores are lower on both coasts are driven by demographics: More young people tend to live there.

-- Steve Hymon