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It depends on where you live. As I noted earlier, here in Urban Central Illinois, we hardly ever see raccoons as roadkill, it’s all squirrels, cats, and possums.
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Raccoons are nocturnal, so they’re out when cars can’t see them at the side of the road. Can’t speak for the rest of the human race, but I swerve to avoid animals if it’s safe to do so, and if I can see them. But at night, I can’t always see them, so I’ve inadvertently “thumped” a few.
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Even a member of a superintelligent species can’t extrapolate with no data–a human child doesn’t know what “oncoming headlights” signify until he’s old enough to observe and to retain what “car headlights” mean, usually about age 5. So a raccoon ambling up to the pavement on his appointed nocturnal round wouldn’t have any way of knowing that “oncoming headlights” means “wait until it passes.” It would just be “bright lights/loud noise” to him. It’s not a factor of intelligence as such, in other words. He could be a racccoon Einstein, able to solve complex quadratic equations in his head, but if he’d never actually seen a compatriot squished by the “bright lights/loud noise thing”, he wouldn’t know what it was.
So not with their bare hands then? 
My evolution included a club.
My coming of age involved a club of sorts.
Really? Why would you rate them at that level-- ie, self aware, tool making animals.
Based on both field research accounts and personal (if anecdotal) experience of watching them in action. Bears and raccoons are not tool-makers, of course–the lack of opposable thumbs inhibits the ability to build tools–but both are mechanically very clever, capable of learning quickly by example, and will used found ‘tools’ in the environment for leverage and manipulation. I once watched a sow attempt to open a self-locking trash can (the kind with a latch that is underneath a cover, requiring you to insert your hand palm up under the latch). She then picked up a branch with her teeth and attempted to jam it under the cover, again with no positive effect. It was clear that she understood where the mechanism was (if not, perhaps, how it worked); she kept trying to fit her paw under the cover and attempted to tear at it with her teeth, to no avail, so she’d clearly observed people opening it and was attempting to emulate. I’ve also seen on several occasions raccoons working cooperatively to obtain leverage to open containers. On this basis, both species are certainly smarter than canines, and at least as intelligent if not moreso than Equus. Bears (both North American Black and Brown) demonstrate a degree of communication skill and empathy that permits them to function socially around dense food sources even though they are not normally social animals.
Given that bears fill the same environmental niche in North America as gorillas do in Africa (and have generally the same temperament, i.e. retiring and generally non-aggressive), and raccoons as smaller scavenging primates around the world, I don’t think it is too far of a reach to suggest that their level of cognitive development is somewhere on the same order of complexity, albeit their behaviors and expressions are not going to be identical to social primates.
Stranger
I’ve seen a raccoon open the latches on an old-fashioned Coleman cooler, so I think they are pretty smart.
A friend of mine, Harold, had a hand raised adult female raccoon. Petunia loved to mix it up with Harold’s cats and would even start trouble with Harold’s mastiffs. One day Harold called me for help in getting Petunia to the vet because she’d been in a bad fight with the dogs. I was in the passenger seat holding Petunia, when she decided she needed to sit on my head to be comfortable. People in the other cars stared and pointed; I only wish I had pictures of me wearing my raccoon hat that day!
I’m not convinced. Either about the intelligence level or that bears and gorillas fill the same ecological niche. Black bears omnivores, eating a wide range of meat and fish. Their lifestyles are quite different, too, as gorillas and chimps are highly social animals living in tightly knit social groups. Add to that the considerable differences in length of “childhood”, and the comparison breaks down even further. That is not to say that raccoorns aren’t very clever, but chimp-level cleverness? Unlikely.
Of course if you’ve got cites to back up any of those claims…
Dude, I’ve seen rocks that are smarter than a chicken. Chickens run around after you cut off their heads because they only use them for eating & breathing, it takes a while for them to starve or suffocate.
I can only reply–
I swear I’ve posted a couple of links to peer-reviewed papers before but I can’t find them now. I have read several papers by Joanne Oliva-Purdy, who has done observational research on both black bears and primates which indicated that the capability of conceptual comprehension may be roughly equal, at least in qualitative measures of intelligence. Here is a link from the WNET Nature program (for what that is worth) discussing ursine intelligence. Bears, of course, don’t engage in the group social relationships that the more advanced primates regularly do, and while they are capable of some degree of social altruism when they do form “social” groups around a common food source, these are temporary interactions of convenience rather than lifelong tribal units. On the other hand, bears show an excellent grasp of mechanical conceptualization (despite their lack of gripping appendages) and do have an extended rearing period (2-1/2 to 3 years), which is comparable or longer than most large carnivores, despite the fact that bears, especially black bears, are not primary predators. The diet of most bears (aside from coastal bears with access to spawning grounds or shellfish sources) is largely vegetable- and nut-scrounging, with most protein coming from grubs and insects, and hunting only opportunistically. Comparing their intelligence to that of a gorilla or orangutan might be a bit of stretch but it’s not an enormous one.
Stranger
Hey, I meant a strip club! Get your mind out of the gutter, pal!
Animal intelligence is a difficult thing to evaluate. How intelligent is a spider? Not at all, but it can make some intricate webs. Trap door spiders make intricate dens with hinged lids. Some birds make amazingly complex nests Some birds use tools, as do Otters. They used to measure intelligence by looking at the mass of the brain in proportion to the body, but that’s looking iffy.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of Alex, the recently deceased African Gray Parrot, but he had surpassed most intelligence metrics of great apes and dolphins before he died:
I don’t think they are very bright. But they are VERY curious. This means they will try things more than other types of animals. Also means I find more dead raccoons, cause they are trying stupid things. The more you try things, the more you’ll find the things that work and be able to teach them.
And then, there was Mike:
*On Monday, September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, had his mother-in-law around for supper and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen failed to completely decapitate the five-and-a-half month old bird named Mike. The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact.[3]
On the first night after the decapitation Mike slept with his decapitated head under his wing.[4]*
Despite Olsen’s botched handiwork, Mike was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily; he even attempted to preen and crow, although he could do neither. After the bird did not die, a surprised Mr. Olsen decided to continue to care permanently for Mike, feeding him a mixture of milk and water via an eyedropper; he was also fed small grains of corn. Mike occasionally choked on his own mucus, which the Olsen family would clear using a syringe.
Turns out he weighed 2.5 lbs at the time they tried to kill him but grew to 8 lbs before he choked to death (and no, nobody “choked the chicken”—they tried to save him).
Just for accuracy, Dr Pepperberg’s claims regarding the birds “intelligence” are not universally accepted. Ever hear about Clever Hans?. Just saying.
Were her papers not subject to peer review? I would think a scientist in a university program would know how to conduct experiments, wouldn’t she?
Have you seen videos of Alex at work? It’s not at all like clever Hans. For instance, when asked to count how many items are on a tray, Alex would not go, “One, two, three, four…” and then stop on the ‘right’ number. Alex would simply look at the board full of objects and say “Six.” Or when asked “What matter?” when a researcher would show Alex a material made of wood, Alex would just say “Wood.”
Wikipedia? C’mon, pal, you can find a more authoritative source than Wikipedia! 
Yes, and it’s difficult to compare intelligence levels across species. Raccoons are no doubt very smart at being raccoons. But I would be very surprised if raccoons were on the level of the great apes across a broad test of intelligence. Something that included problem solving and rational planning. A chimp can solve a problem in its mind, and then proceed to do it the first time. Not many animals can do that, although crows and ravens appear to be able to (which I think would surprise a lot of people).
I’ve seen raccoons puzzle out problems; while I would not put them on the level of a chimpanzee, they’re almost certainly as intelligent as the smarter monkeys like capuchins. Given what I’ve seen of and read of the behavior of American Black bears, I don’t think it out of line to compare their intelligence to that of the Great Apes (though there are clearly some behavioral and social differences, as outlined above), and if anything, Brown/grizzly bears appear to display and even greater degree of conceptualization, although bears lack the fine manipulative ability to make tools or structures. The complexity of the brain structure of ursines also suggests a high level of development comparable to primates, although this is not definitive or quantitative in a useful way.
Estimating animal intelligence, especially as a single qualitative measure is a tricky business, because the uses we have for intelligence may not be quite the same that other animals have, but experience has shown that in general we have tended to underestimate the capacity of non-human species in their conceptual intelligence, cognitive depth, and self-awareness and empathy.
The intelligence of crows and ravens (and most species of parrot as well) is well recognized by people who have been in close contact with them, even if it is only recently recognized by the behavioral community and novel to the public at large. Particularly of note is their learned behaviors and adolescent playfulness, which included complex games and competitions between birds to sharpen foraging and stashing skills, as well as communication between birds.
Stranger