N of 1 but I would definitely pat at 10K more for an automated car, maybe 15. There are so many other things that I would rather do that pay attention to the road during my 1.5 hour daily commute.

In that study, they are calling average the median, but in my experience, people rarely think of average as the median. Instead they think of the mean and it is quite possible for 80% of people to be above the mean. Take the set 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 1, 1. The mean is 5 and 8 of the 10 people are above the mean.

I also think that people's perceptions of the average driver are perhaps excessively derived from the most memorable drivers - i.e. the terrible ones. I certainly don't remember the 100s of cars that I drove by this morning that stayed in the lane without any trouble.

I'm not going to argue in favor of the invasion of Iraq because it was a horrible idea, but really? How did invading Iraq result in cheaper gasoline? It didn't cause more oil to come onto the market which would lower the price. The US didn't take over the oil wells and direct the oil to only the US. Even if that happened I am skeptical that would result in lower prices as other producers would route oil elsewhere to take advantage of higher prices. Now, if you want to argue that cheap gas prices in the United States are the result of a lenient tax regime on gasoline and on oil production in general, you might have a case. Although.... in the latter case, the various tax breaks that the oil companies receive probably just result in greater profits for them and not lower gas prices.