That's a real stumper as to whether it's good, or bad...

Which side will my Jeep land on if I roll it? :lol:

No no no. It's the car with the driver applying nail polish to her/his fingernails and gingerly handling the steering wheel with one hand so the other hand can dry without smearing that you worry about. It's tricky not messing up a manicure while driving and obviously the priority here is pretty nails.

I saw this marvelous driver last summer. She couldn't figure out why other drivers were honking at her as she drove like a snail in the centre lane.

*Rampant Unsupported Profiling Alert*

Bad:

Minivans (all kinds). Men who drive them overcompensate for the fact that buying the damned thing was the wife's idea, and he couldn't have the Mustang he wanted; women who drive them seem to be in a constant state of low-grade panic, likely because they're late for daycare/soccer/hockey/karate/piano/school/ballet/whatever (hi, sis!).

Boiracers. There's nothing like the Pwissssss! of a turbo system dumping pressure to say, "I (or more likely, my parents) have more money than brains." C'mon, an aftermarket turbo on a Dodgey Neon?

Lift kits. For men, the distance the truck has been lifted is directly proportional to the insecurity the driver feels over the length of his penis. For women, it's directly proportional to the length of the penis she envies.

Token good:

Corvettes (all years). Plastic fantastic + 215 pounds of me through the windshield = closed casket funeral for the driver. That, or the dent I'd leave in the car will worsen the owner's mid-life crisis. Either way, Corvette drivers give me a wide berth.

On long rides I have found people with big pickups and horse trailers tend to give me lots of safe space. I don't know any horse people, but my guess is that they understand being a vulnerable road user.

SUVs, and pickups in general, where I live in the 'burbs, are unnecessary and a sign of wasteful consumption. Their drivers tend to be selfish jerks. I imagine that drivers who actually have a need for large vehicles may drive differently, like the horse trailer people.

Mid-'70s Cutlasses and Impalas.

Anybody in cars. I'd say about 2% to 1% of drivers. No particular typing noticed. I do notice that the home bound rush hour seems present more of them.

I tend to ride in poor to working class neighborhoods.

Personally, I wear a Cinci Bearcats hat whenever I'm not in the office, and my car has a stainless exhaust with a big tailpipe. I give half a lane every time, which is pretty often since my route home from work is all backroads between East Longmeadow, MA and Hartford, CT (popular bike route apparently).

Maybe my hatch-mount bike rack that I'm too lazy to ever remove really does offset the risk factors...

One could argue that a small pickup is greener than some cars. You see cars that can seat 5-6 people with one driver only running around town. Where as my small Ford Ranger only has three usable seat positions if i cram someone right next to me in the middle which gives me no room to shift(standard trans) plus i can carry quite a few bikes and other large odds n ends in it. Might say its less wasteful but i guess im stretching it a little here. I went to smaller truck with smaller motor this time as a little contribution to wasteful consumption you speak of.

Point taken. Around here I haven't seen a small pickup in ages. When I said pickup I was seeing this, usually driven too fast and owning the road.

http://ithinkimightbeagrownup.files..../dodge-ram.jpg

This thread is bonkers. I wear a hat while a ride my bike. Backwards. Does that mean cars should look out for me?

Was that you, I forgot the post exactly: you stopped to offer a cyclist with a broken bike a lift and you scared the crap out of him? :D

Hey hey hey!!! Watch it :D I have a minivan, 2004 Mazda MPV, it was my decision to buy it (for utility: fits 3 people, 3 bikes with wheels on and all gear inside) and I'm a very considerate and safe driver. And I would never drive a sports car, ever. So there goes your stereotype... although I pretty much agree that I am an exception from this rule :D

LOL:D What about bikes with stickers?!?

Old people and girls with huge sunglasses. Old people can stare right at you as they gun the accelerator and not even see a thing. The big glasses 20 something girls are just annoying, in the car and in life.

Yeah, they usually have serious emotional issues and they look like bugs, they just don't realize that.

Oh, but add those boxy Scion cars :D

Yep. It was before I had the bike rack, so it was a little less obvious that I was stopping to offer him a ride to the LBS. I think the only thing I could have done to scare him more would have been to roll up behind him with my spotter lights on and hit the airhorn.

cccorlew mentioned drivers with horse trailers giving plenty of room, and I notice that around here, too. I don't know if it's based on equestrian understanding of being a vulnerable road user, or if it's just because they're safety conscious about their humongous trailers and actually understand how much space they take up on the road. Either way, I've never gotten less than 1/2 a lane of clearance from one.

Darn, I guess that rule out big glasses for me. I thought about taking a round helmet and paint it red with some black dots all over. Then I'll put on one of those big black sunglass to make me look like a Ladybug with big bug eyes riding around town on a cruiser. :)

I'm not 20 so maybe I gotten over my illness by now.....NOT! :p

For me, the ones to watch out for is any car or truck containing two or more young guys. They're the ones that throw things at me, and I can just imagine that every time, it is preceded by: "Hey, watch this!" If they're well behaved enough not to try to clip me or throw things at me, they can't refrain from shouting something out the window.

As someone posted earlier, it is usually an afterthought. I can't see them coming, but I can tell the demographic as they pass by.

This week, as I was riding home, some guys shouted out the window at me: "WOOOOOO!" I caught up to them at the light, pulled up next to them, and gave them the: "What was THAT all about?" look. One of them timidly replied: "Nice lights." Somehow, they lose their courage when they are no longer anonymous or going 40 mph faster than us.

If I saw you riding your bike backwards, I'd probably give you some extra room.

i am cautious of EVERY car I see. however, i am guilty of 'profiling' before I yell at a driver for being an ass. If they look intimidating, i let it go, otherwise i'll let them know they need to watch where they're going. that's just from learned experience, I don't like when big scary dudes get out of their car and ask me to repeat myself.

I don't think anybody's talking about risk factors; this stuff doesn't contribute to making someone a bad driver. They're just possible warning signs. Or: "correlation doesn't imply causation."

But, if somebody notices a "red flag" that holds true 51 % of the time, and gets out of the way when they see somebody with bug-eye sunglasses in a minivan about to make a left turn ... it might add up after thousands of miles. Or, it might not, but make an interesting thread.

After 50 years of cycling, I've found nothing that "signals" a bad driver. No driver is to be trusted.

That, or they know that hitting anything will spook their horses. The last thing you want in a trailer is a frightened horse.

Yay confirmation bias! :lol:

That's the whole point. This thread is all about stereotypes and making unfair assumptions. It may not be right, but it's fun.

Actually if I notice that 95% of the drivers who pass me shoddily are wearing hats, but only 5% of those who pass me safely are, surely that means something? Not that I would ever be sad enough to compile statistics on it.

those that didn't come from the factory with a turbo, seem to take to turbocharging quite nicely. the best part of FI'ing a neon is that if you pop the motor you can replace it for chump change with the rest of that mexican junkyard motor you bought for the turbo manifold and run it exceptionally hard. the middle/higher model neons were an exceptional performance bargain if you could get past things like newspaper-thickness subframes, iffy glass (tons of waves/deformations), and enough electrical gremlins to make you believe yours was built in britain.

///haven't owned a neon, but wrenched a few, driven plenty

That's probably fair. The people who keep their hats on while driving are either farmers that wear them all the time, or folks who aren't sharp enough to realize they don't need a hat on their head while driving. (or who are more concerned with the extra style their hat adds than anything practical) I'll look for this one at least.

Maybe they just like wearing hats? Maybe it never occurred to them to take off a hat while driving. Do you take off your pants when you drive? Surely you don't need pants in the comfort of your own car. They serve no purpose and nobody would even see you. Maybe you aren't sharp enough to figure that one out yet.

ha ha!

If you're really short, or really tall, factory sunvisors are woefully insufficient. I'm 6'6", and if I put the factor sunvisor down, I can't see where I'm going. A cycling cap or baseball hat visor is the safer option for me.