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!

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.

Just yesterday some idiot in a minivan rolled his window down and started yelling and cursing at me, he was not wearing any hats and it was the passenger not the driver. The funny thing is, it was on a three lane road and he wasn't even in the same lane as me.

The History of Hats:

I think "unfair" and "not [morally] right" would be appropriate if cyclists were going to discriminate against people as a result of the correlations they notice. But you really can't say that getting out of a driver's way is discriminating against them.

Please note that I was not being 100% serious here. Also, it is not a good analogy. Hats are quick & easy enough to take off and put on again.


Here's a story to lighten things up:

An old man named Jeremy is sitting on his porch one day with no pants on. A couple people notice this while walking by and make funny looks. Later that week, the rumor got back to him at his local watering hole. His friend Dan The Man asked him: "Jeremy, I heard you were sitting out on your porch the other day without your pants on. Why?" To which Jeremy replied: "Well Dan, the other day, I was sitting on my porch without my shirt on, and I got a stiff neck."


A good point. You're pretty sharp, despite wearing a hat while driving.

I avoid U-Hauls, pizza delivery drivers, and scrapper trucks like the plague. I try to give respect and coiurtesy to mail and UPS trucks, buses, and even (gasp) cabs.

My surest tip-off of a potential near-death experience looming, however, is seeing a Lexus SUV. I think a clean majority of my very close calls in the last year (not many, for the record) involved a Lexus SUV. Especially avoid them when the driver is possibly drunk already (pregame, whoo!) and on his way to a Blackhawks playoff game. And while I normally refuse to concede my legal right-of-way unless it seems like doing so would significantly improve my chances of surviving the commute (or if there are small children involved), I have learned to concede that a left-turning Lexus SUV doesn't ever need to stop or yield for anyone, ever, and plan my ride through the tonier precincts of Chicago accordingly.

I don't care who's driving,I'm looking at doors and front wheels.

I seem to have done a good job confining my not-so-sharp moments to decisions made during long-distance rides. Double-C attempt on 2.5h sleep. Very hilly 200k attempt with a sinus infection.

I've ridden enough to learn that anyone is a potential threat regardless what they're wearing.

I don't profile based on clothes, but I do profile based on the condition of the car. Faulty headlight / taillight - bad driver. Hasn't failed me yet. Old car in poor condition - doesn't sound too clever - bad driver. Again hasn't failed me yet.

There should be a special, segregated lane for hat-wearers.

A couple of people have commented along the lines of "every driver is a potential threat, no matter what they're wearing." Of course that's true. But the point is that some are more likely to be a threat than others.

Someone else mentioned taxis. In my experience they're either very good or very bad.

+1

Whenever I've had anything yelled at me, thrown at me, or otherwise felt like I was in for trouble, its been young men in the car.

Although its little old ladies that right hook me.

Yeah I put the laugh after it because I agree that we should be having fun in this thread instead of turning it into an A&S discussion...

But, since you mentioned it... what I meant by "confirmation bias" is that I don't think you know how many hat-wearers passed you safely, because your brain doesn't consider those events important... it just wants to pay real close attention to those times you almost died. So, it could be that only 5% of hat wearers are bad drivers, but 95% of bad drivers are hat wearers... and if you have close calls with hat wearers a lot, it just means that apparently most people like to wear hats while driving.

There are other kinds of confirmation bias in effect here, but you get the idea...

Just making a joke because we all have confirmation biases. Except for me... I've never noticed any confirmation biases in myself...

I never have a bad hair day, I have a baseball cap day, it's a man thing. I wonder if I drive worse when I have a baseball cap on?

Or wearing a hat while driving should be outlawed, like cellphones