In my little piece of surburbia, school buses tend to scare me the most. There are a lot of them out immediately prior to rush hour which just happens to be when I'm commuting by bike. I think that school bus drivers are so used to everyone else yielding to them (which is a good thing since my kids are passengers), that they simply ignore cyclists. I've been cut off, squeezed onto the shoulder, and forced to ride behind these fume-belching monsters far too often. Rant over.

(P.S. I own two bimmers and take offense at the anti-Munchen motors attitude ;-))

Years ago when I was in the tire business there was an unwritten rule that you didn't have to deal with more than one of the following groups because they were so obnoxious (that's stating things much more politely than the way it was usually stated)
1) BMW car owners
2) Cadillac owners
3) Corvette owners.

I owned a pair of BMW motorcycles over the years, and people used to get embarrassed when they remembered that after complaining about BMW auto owners. I'd just smile and tell them I understood.:p

Pickup truck drivers, by far. Chip on their shoulder. Not bad drivers, but watch for these landscaper rigs, the trailer is usually much wider than the trucks pulling them.

When I used to work as a motorcycle courier in London, the sight of a diplo plate on, say, a 5 year old Mercedes, set alarm bells jangling like crazy.

As for the other "profiles" there is some truth to most of them, but they also tend to be dependent on location.
Delivery and service vehicles, the dreaded "White van man" Often, the job sucks, they get crap for not getting the schedule completed, and are often at risk of getting canned. The other thing is there are more of them than most of the others put together, given the tendency to just remember the bad, they sometimes get an undeserved rep.

While I am aware of the type of vehicle, I tend to be observing little clues like how they are positioned in the lane, signaling, ( or lack thereof ) that kind of stuff. Mostly this goes on at a subconcious level, and I will often find myself paying close attention to someones behaviour, before I've figured out what it was that set off the alarm.

One type that drives me crazy, are the parents dropping off their kid at school, and causing hazards in the attempt to minimize the danger to their little brat.

http://www.yehudamoon.com/index.php?date=2008-04-29

I only worry about semis when I am driving, as I rarely encounter them in the city. And I only "worry" in the sense that I respect the mass of the vehicle and the limited visibility due to the size. As far as the drivers go, they tend to be very courteous and predictable. Much more so than the average motorist.

I worked as a valet in South Lake Tahoe for a couple of summers, and was appalled by the terrible visibility from almost all of the large trucks and SUVs. Hummers were the worst, super wide with narrow windows.

Add a lift kit, and you've got a driver with terrible lines of sight, an outsized sense of road ownership, and something to prove (I don't know what, nor, I think, do they). You think they can't see you on your bike? Try driving alongside one in a small car. I love the 42 mpg my Metro gets, but I feel more invisible in that car than on my bike most of the time. I really should get one of those flags that all the 'bent riders rock.

pfft, I can't be everywhere, silly.

Well, since we're playing one-downsmanship, I have one better than that. It was on a suburban road, not a city street. I already had my arm out, and I was dead in the center of the road. The road had no markings or lane lines, though. I heard a noisy car coming up behind me and got a bad feeling, so I didn't turn left. She passed me on the left. I was towing my two little daughters in a trailer. If I had turned left, she would have mowed us all down. She was not stopping. Maybe she thought my signal was an invitation to pass me.

You said it- project an image. They're projecting, you're livin' it!

That's pretty likely, I think. I've got an angry honk and a vocal "Hey, F you too!" more than once when signaling right turns.

I do wear mittens, so it's not surprising. Some people have no idea what hand signals mean.

Any driver that talks on their cell phone or texting while driving is an IDIOT. Also what scares me is very old people driving.

What's a moran?

You don't know? Get a brain.

-- Yard crews in their pickups, pulling those low trailers. They're gonna grease you when they try to pass, and they're gonna pull back over well before their wagon has cleared you. Definitely the worst.

-- Anybody in a diesel pickup. The fumes must elicit anger, or something, in the drivers. They are rolling piles of pissed-off manhood.

-- Anything coming out of a high-school parking lot at lunchtime.

http://www.entertonement.com/clips/f...-Kenney-Stork--

As far as the Prius, I've never been buzzed by one, but I've been startled by one. It was too quiet--I didn't hear it until it was right behind me.

I'm in London, UK, and have heard the BMW thing as well. But I do not find it to be true. Rather, I have to say BMW drivers tend to be a little better than other drivers. The ones I find bad are those driving small cars as they tend to be either overly careful (light's red, 'hun, get a fricking move on instead of staring at me in your rear view mirror) or dumb (the road's about to narrow so either stay behind me or stick it into second gear and accelerate hard, coz your 4th gear acceleration aint gonna get you infront of me in time for the narrowing of the lane).

London cabbies are great, give plenty of space, always aware of what's around them. Thumbs up/ Buses are also real good. A couple of times I've come across the move-outta-the-way-cowboy-i'min-a-hurry bus driver, but hardly worth mentioning.

Drivers of more expensive cars are a touch more careful, I guess they have more to lose financially if they're involved in an accident and also they dont wanna damage their fine automobiles.

This reminds me, I had a tiny scrape witha person in a small car (see paragraph one).

I'd say about 98% of the 'close to death' experiences for me have been from Porsche drivers.

I've had the identical move pulled on me. Minus the kids in a trailer, though, so you still win.

Contractors with old pickups carrying unsecured/poorly secured cargo. Nothing like dodging a sawhorse that just tumbled out of the back of mid '80s F 150 to get your heart racing.

+1 on the landscaper rigs. There's a rig which passes me on a regular basis in the morning and it scares the hell out of me. You think the van has passed by, you relax and the trailer damn near wipes you out

Sometimes I find i am braking before i've decided to brake!


Dreaded hand.

What you mention is best type of profiling, it just so happens in various anecdotal experiences we've had different cars stand out... that being said i can't resist and would like to add "post-menopausal woman having a hot flash" to the list of drivers to watch out for - because sometimes all you can do is lean on the horn and try to make life miserable for other people! :D

Like a couple others have pointed out, I have been put in perilous circumstances by all kinds of vehicles, none excluded. Mostly I watch out for any erratic or aggressive driving. I also listen for vehicles behind me and how hard the engines are running and how close they are (in addition to my mirror). Maybe some of the more aggressive drivers have been Yellow Cab, mostly in the summer when the tourists are out. Then it would be full-sized trucks (construction workers) followed by larger vans (delivery, carpool, smaller buses). In all my experience the scariest drivers have been middle-aged men, period.

In my personal experience...cell phone drivers seem to be the most courteous (i.e. wait behind me on blind curves, wait longer at driveways/stop signs). I figure having someone to talk to makes them more patient.

+1

This has been my experience so far.

On an extremely somber note, a cyclist was killed in January in Key Biscayne, FL by a hit and run VW Jetta driver that was drunk, driving on a suspended license, and possibly texting at the time. He hit the cyclist, left him there to die and kept going and dragged the bicycle for at least 3 miles.