I agree, which is why I only use the term in a kind of negative reference: this knowledge is evidently not common place.

Err... well ok, unless it is the proper noun form, directly referring to Tom Paine's revolutionary war era pamphlet... which... I think is the sort of proximal etymylogical / cultural origin of the phrase as we use it today?

Either way, yes, its a bastardized term now, like how 'literally' now also means roughly 'figuratively + extremely' in certain contexts, from certain speakers.

I think that back in 1770's English, 'common' was also often used to mean something ... simple, unremarkable, basic.

Not just uh... plentiful, easily found in many places.

So then, 'common sense' would roughly translate to modern English as something like 'basic logic'.

And to loop that all around, I would say that people who ... do not treat driving a car like they are operating a ton or two of mass that can move up to 80 or 120 mph or whatever... you know, as that, well they actually are not excercising what I would call basic logic.