Prius Haters Abound

[jabberwocky]

Over the years I’ve learned to detest Priuses and their drivers. There is no single model of car that is more troublesome to me when I’m on the bike.

[mello yello]

Phewh! Glad I live Southeast (EOTR), my Prius is safe!

[Terpfan]

With flats like that, I have no doubts that I will hear them coming.

[mello yello]

changing the tubes in those must be hard. Anyone have extra patch kits?

[bobco85]

@jabberwocky 58756 wrote:

Over the years I’ve learned to detest Priuses and their drivers. There is no single model of car that is more troublesome to me when I’m on the bike.

What about the following letters: B – M – W?

[jabberwocky]

@bobco85 58793 wrote:

What about the following letters: B – M – W?

IME, a distant fourth, behind Priuses, Mercedes and large pickups.

[dbb]

@bobco85 58793 wrote:

What about the following letters: B – M – W?

A writer from Slate seems to agree and offer some possible explanations to the cause.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/a_fine_whine/2013/07/bmw_drivers_and_cyclists_the_war_between_the_luxury_cars_and_bicycles.html

[Arlingtonrider]

I’ve got to admit, I don’t really get this whole stereotyping thing. I’ve encountered good and bad behavior by drivers of all sorts of vehicles. My own wariness rises somewhat with big SUV drivers, but some of them have also been the most gracious drivers I’ve come across.

[ShawnoftheDread]

Anyone else notice that middle-aged men in minivans tend to be pretty aggressive drivers (not rcannon100, of course)? I think they might be the Freds of the driving world.

[DismalScientist]

@ShawnoftheDread 58815 wrote:

Anyone else notice that middle-aged men in minivans tend to be pretty aggressive drivers (not rcannon100, of course)? I think they might be the Freds of the driving world.

As I sit here in my minivan dropping off my kids, I realize I have nothing for which to live.:rolleyes:

[dasgeh]

To be fair, the Prius thing might be attributable to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon [is this the right term?]: when something strikes you as odd, you notice it more often. For me, when I see a Prius driver being a jerk, I think “really? you? you’re driving a Prius – you should be nice to the world and to all the other people being nice to the world, especially cyclists!”. So the next time I see a Prius driver being a jerk, I take note. Based on my mental ledger, I start seeing a pattern – all Priius drivers suck. In reality, “good” Prius driver just aren’t notable, so I don’t take note of them and don’t take them into account in my stereotyping. Similarly, “bad” big-car drivers aren’t as notable (because I expect them to be bad), so I don’t take note of them. Again, based on my mental ledger, Prius drivers seem worse than big-car drivers.

I think there’s a similar phenomenon at work with people thinking all cyclists are scofflaws. When a person sees a cyclist doing something really f**king stupid, that gets noted. Normal, boring, law-abiding cyclists don’t make it onto that mental ledger. So all cyclists on their mental ledger are scofflaws.

[Tim Kelley]

@DismalScientist 58818 wrote:

As I sit here in my minivan dropping off my kids, I realize I have nothing for which to live.

I wish I had a minivan. You could just roll multiple bikes in and out!

[jabberwocky]

In my experience, Prius drivers tend to just be terrible. Not generally aggressive, but total brain-stem drivers (the actual brain doesn’t seem to be engaged in any fashion whatsoever). Its obviously not universal; my lovely girlfriend drives a Prius C, and lots of Prius drivers are considerate and good, but they definitely seem to be the make and model that attracts far more than their fair share of idiots.

When I started noticing this pattern several years ago, my working theory was that people drive Priuses to feel good about how green they are, and seeing a cyclist pisses them off because it reminds them that they are still driving cars and burning gas and knocks them right off their nice smug-cloud. After driving my girlfriends Prius a few times, my new theory is that 75% of the info in front of you when driving a Prius is focused on fuel efficiency, and Prius drivers get obsessed with maximizing mileage, so they tend to not want to slow down and re-accelerate for any reason.

[dasgeh]

@DismalScientist 58818 wrote:

As I sit here in my minivan dropping off my kids, I realize I have nothing for which to live.

You need a different type of minivan.

[jrenaut]

Agree with dasgeh and jabberwocky, for the most part. I expect Prius drivers to be inattentive. I expect large pickups to buzz me. I expect BMWs and Lexuses to be complete a***oles. I expect cabs to actively try to kill me.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that cars with bike racks on them don’t seem to drive any better around bikes than other drivers.

[Author]

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