What Make/Model Car Terrifies You the Most When You’re Riding?

[jabberwocky]

In order:
Priuses.
Any Mercedes.
Pickups.
Moms in minivans.

EDIT: And adding a Maryland plate seems to drastically increase the idiocy level of any driver.

[creadinger]

Dump trucks. They get paid by the load, so they will not slow down for anything. Even if that anything is you. They also seem to *think* they know exactly how wide their trucks are and despite being multiton vehicles will rarely ever try to give you 3 feet, let along actually give you 3 feet.

[Anonymous]

School bus. It tends to be about 50/50 for me they are either extra solicitous and give tons of room or they pass terrifyingly close. Unfortunately, I can’t take the extra room from the super careful ones and add it to the terrifyingly close ones. So when I see one I anticipate the worst.

[Orestes Munn]

@jabberwocky 99271 wrote:

In order:
Priuses.
Any Mercedes.
Pickups.
Moms in minivans.

EDIT: And adding a Maryland plate seems to drastically increase the idiocy level of any driver.

Prii are really bad, aren’t they? One might think…but no.

Mixed experience with pickups, especially in recent decades.

Moms in minivans is ad feminem, but yes.

I commute and work out in MD, so I’m not aware of the tag effect. In my experience, there are few more dangerous signs than a FL plate.

[TwoWheelsDC]

Dump trucks, with landscaping trucks a close second. With cars, for whatever reason I’ve been bike lane-blocked by a lot of minivans (seemingly driven by an equal proportion of men and women) lately on Fairfax Dr.

[jabberwocky]

@Orestes Munn 99278 wrote:

Prii are really bad, aren’t they? One might think…but no.

Mixed experience with pickups, especially in recent decades.

Moms in minivans is ad feminem, but yes.

I commute and work out in MD, so I’m not aware of the tag effect. In my experience, there are few more dangerous signs than a FL plate.

In my experience, Priuses are top in the “doing really thoughtless stuff” category. Rarely outright aggressive, but just seem to be always distracted/not paying attention and almost never want to slow down for any reason. Lots of passing too close, running stop signs/lights, left/right hook type stuff.

Mercedes drivers are almost always entitled pricks. ’nuff said. Oddly, despite their reputation, I almost never have issues with beemers. Other luxury brands (infiniti, lexus, audi) are usually worse.

Pickups are more varied, but I get a lot of aggressive wannabe-alpha-male behavior from them. Could just be that the only people driving giant pickups in Great Falls and Reston are people with manhood insecurity issues.

Moms in minivans I just mean the ones with kids commuting in during morning rush hour. Always distracted, always in a hurry, always annoyed that someone on a bike is preventing them from getting their precious kids to school on time.

MD plates I don’t see very often in VA, and when I do it seems they are always being idiots.

@acl 99276 wrote:

School bus. It tends to be about 50/50 for me they are either extra solicitous and give tons of room or they pass terrifyingly close. Unfortunately, I can’t take the extra room from the super careful ones and add it to the terrifyingly close ones. So when I see one I anticipate the worst.

Ugh. I hate school busses. I actually try and time my commute to avoid them (the one advantage is there aren’t that many and they stick to a rigid route and schedule). You’d think a vehicle that spends so much time holding other people up would be more patient.

[baiskeli]

@creadinger 99274 wrote:

Dump trucks. They get paid by the load, so they will not slow down for anything. Even if that anything is you. They also seem to *think* they know exactly how wide their trucks are and despite being multiton vehicles will rarely ever try to give you 3 feet, let along actually give you 3 feet.

And if you don’t watch out, they may run over your head.

[americancyclo]

taxis

[Alcova cyclist]

For aggressiveness and general douchebaggery, it’s the Mercedes/BMW crowd. (There’s actually a great Audi commercial that plays on this)

For cluelessness, I find Subaru Foresters to be far worse than Priuses (Prii?).

[baiskeli]

Audis. Black Audis especially.

[PotomacCyclist]

Hotel shuttle buses, some taxis (but not all), Porsches, and clunker mobiles.

[baiskeli]

@Alcova cyclist 99319 wrote:

For aggressiveness and general douchebaggery, it’s the Mercedes/BMW crowd. (There’s actually a great Audi commercial that plays on this)

Most ridiculous car ad ever, and that’s saying alot. Audi drivers are pinnacles of virtue? Right. At least that ad acknowledges that luxury car drivers in general can be jerks. But it’s like those car ads that argue that a car can make a driver not care about traffic congestion. Car ads are the most transparently desperate ads there are.

[PotomacCyclist]

You mean all drivers don’t get to enjoy the “freedom of the open road” on every trip, where there is never any traffic?

[83b]

Every single luxury car on Capitol Hill with Maryland plates!

But my latest top-hated car are Teslas. They’re so bloody quiet that you absolutely can’t hear them coming up behind you and they seem to have a terrible problem staying under 25mph!

[OneEighth]

Anything being operated by some NDMF.

[Author]

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