The quote is "by definition like 49% of the drivers are technically better than the "average driver"." It's obvious to anyone who's not pedantic that they're referring to the median.
As for an example of a mode average: "The average participant's favorite polygon was a triangle."
That's not the original use. That's a response to the (unattributed) idea that self-driving cars would need to be "better than the average driver". In the original context of people giving thresholds for self-driving cars, I disagree that median is what is meant.
> As for an example of a mode average: "The average participant's favorite polygon was a triangle."
But that mode might be 5 out of 40, and I'd just call that a lie. In a lot of distributions the mode just gives you the biggest or smallest number. And it's affected a lot by bucket size; if I measure "how long did you sleep last night" with a resolution of seconds, the mode is probably going to be 0, which is hilariously misleading. Mode, much like a broken clock, might pick a suitable number sometimes, but all the factors you need to check to see if it's suitable basically render the idea of 'mode' redundant. Just use those factors to pick your number. Mean and median are pretty reliable in being useful. Mode isn't.
Sure, and that’s what average may refer to before you drill in with a specific definition. If I say by definition, rectangles are technically polygons with 4 edges of equal length, you’re going to say “technically” I meant a square.
