supersport

So, you're saying it wasn't you in the F250 who repeatedly, day-after-day, tried to brush me off the road on my commute? This was on a well-maintained road with a clearly marked bike lane during daylight. Happened dozens of times. Same truck.

If everyone in a Prius is an idiot, then everyone in an F250 is a malicious idiot. And, I don't have a stake in this vehicle-choice debate because we sold our car in 2004. People are how they act. End of story.

czar

I think it a combination of - 1) The hybrids are quieter 2) The driver's focus is on the gas consumption gauge to ensure that he / she gets the best possible mileage. I have seen this almost cause accidents on interstates & busy intersections, where the Prius drivers will accelarate very slowly to conserve fuel causing traffic disruption around them.

not2fast

your location says Italy. Having lived in Italy for 2 years, I can assure no one is driving an F-250 on a regular basis.

Nope, I never ran you off the road....I wouldnt have missed you!!

supersport

Sorry for the confusion. In an earlier post in this thread I mentioned commuting and riding in San Diego for a few years.

SKYLAB

This is a silly thread. But then again, its BF.
Its always easy and comfortable to generalize - Prius drivers, dudes with mullets, Obama stickers, pickup drivers. None of its true. And some of it undoubtedly is.
Some drivers just have an inner need to pass a bicyclicst. If its a bicycle, it must be passed. I've been passed on blind curves where the driver had to go across the double yellow at 45mph. Its never happened to me up here when I was in my car, and I've lived here 25 years. Its happened three times in three years on the bicycle. And I generally go just as fast or faster on the bike on these downhills as I do in the car.

patentcad

I'm sure you've never even met a person who lives off 'welfare handouts'.

Flatballer

San Rensho 

Well then I guess I'm safe from from those dangerous Prii (plural of Prius ?) here in Miami, Fla. I rarely see them here.

Nobody gives a ***** about the environment here, its all about the bling. People here will live at home with mommy and daddy into their 40's in order to save money for the BMW or Porsche but will never, ever buy a Prius.

Scummer

Just be careful out there. I normally hide with my Prius in the bushes and wait for unsuspecting cyclists to ride by and I jump out with a big growl just to get a chuckle when they get scared so much that they overbrake and faceplant right over the handlebars. Muuhahahhaa.

merlinextraligh

There's a self selection bias in Prius drivers. People that do not really care much for driving, or how a car performs are more likely to buy Prius's. People who don't care much for driving, or a car's performance tend to be worse drivers.

Hence, poor drivers are over represented in the Prius owner population.

Note, I'm not saying all Prius drivers are poor drivers. I'm saying the class of Prius drivers has more than its fair share of poor drivers.

Coyote2

The counter-example would be all of the car-obsessed youngsters who are, in fact, terribly reckless drivers. But perhaps you don't live near a high-school or college campus.

Fat Boy

I've absolutely noticed the same thing. A good chunk of all drivers seem to go out of their way to kill me, but Pious drivers definitely show up more often than their market share would lend the to.

I'm particularly pleased with the girl who buzzed me driving her Pious and texting. I'm not Catholic, but I crossed myself after that one.

SegFault

This isn't completely true; modern batteries (if I recall correctly, the current Prius uses NiMH) are highly recyclable.

Nachoman

That makes sense. But couldn't you say the same thing about any non high performance vehicle, average type vehicle?.

prendrefeu

yes.

Naterider

Wow. This thread is a humdinger!

urbanknight

Funny you should mention that. I have had problems with this one Prius during my morning commute lately. At 6:30am with no other traffic around, with two lanes going our direction, on a rather straight stretch of road, it passes me within inches. Not that this is the only car to ever do it to me, but it's so quiet I dno't know it's there until I'm feeling the air displaced by it. Plus, this driver is doing it consistently and seemingly on purpose.

Well, today I looked back every 10 seconds on that stretch until I saw it coming and wrote its plate number down. The driver went way wide after seeing me look, so hopefully they know I'm watching now.

But I also see little correlation between vehicles and inconsiderate drivers.

pilam99

4/5 drivers in NorCal probably have Obama stickers on their cars.

TrippleB

Subaru drivers are the modern equivalent of Volvo drivers .

Q: How can you tell if someone is a hippie or a yuppie?

A: By checking the year of their Subaru.


I have a lot of problems with Prius drivers as well, and I think its definately a personality thing. Prius drivers tend to be a bit self-centered and blissfully ignorant. They "think" they are being green when they are in fact less green than many others on the road driving moderate performance sedans. Ignorant self-rightous types tend to be the most dangerous to cyclists. I am sure many of you have ridden on two lane back country highways; and while the 80mph yahoos are a bit scary, they tend to give you more room than the 40mph right lane hog speed police who refuses to venture accross the dashed lane line to give you elbow room.

On average the Prius only produces about 5g/kg less carbon dioxides than diesel engine pickup trucks. The Prius only has an estimated road life of 109,000 miles which is almost a third that of a cheaply made car out of Detroit. The iconic car of waste, the H2, has a road life of nearly 300,000 miles. Road life matters when talking green considering that up to 80% of the carbon dioxide, sulfer, nitrogen dioxide and other heavy metal polution that comes from us using cars derives from the actual vehicle's production and not spent driving fuel emmissions. The complex engineering of the Prius requires shipment of parts from more locations, the extra heavy metals to construct two engines and a lot of extra nickle to produce the batteries. The Prius actually has a higher cost and environmental impact in its production than an SUV. Combined with a shorter road life these higher production pollution and energy costs far outweigh the fuel saved when driving. Add on top of that the fact that many Prius drivers traded in a perfectly good car with less than 90,000 miles on it in order to go green, and you have a group of people who do more damage to the environment and waste more than some guy driving his H2 with the AC on full blast at 90mph on a hot windy day with the windows down while at the same time sticking their nose up at that guy in utterly ignorant self-rightousness.

I have had several fights with friends who have traded in their 3 year old sedans for a Prius, who then lecture me about driving a 7 year old Beamer with 180,000 miles on it getting 22mpg city and 28mpg highway. Who is the wasteful consumer? In nearly two decades of cycling I have only been clipped once, and it was by some jerkoff in a civic hybrid who had the nerve to tell me I had no business on the road and that a road racing bike is a waste of our natural resources!

I care deeply about our environment and am happy "green" is catching on. My wife is a city planner and GIS consultant on how to develop land with the least amount of environmental impact. We both agree that the ignorance that is infiltrating the green movement is leading to even more wastefull practices in the name of progress, and that is a really dangerous thing.

If you see a Prius out there or some ******** hybrid that trades 5 extra miles per gallon for several hundred pounds of nickel waste in a landfill in 4 years dig your cleats into the door for me!

grolby

They don't pay you to think, do they? Global climate change, which is the result of human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, is by far a more serious environmental threat than the disposal batteries. Make no mistake, it IS a problem that needs to be resolved, but hazardous waste can be stored and dealt with in a way that at least keeps it from contaminating the environment. It's not like Prius batteries are just being chucked into landfills willy-nilly. The problem is storage space, not so much environmental degradation. The greenhouse gases emitted by autos, on the other hand, can't be stored and go into the atmosphere, where they immediately become part of the problem. There's no evidence that the Prius is a particularly environmentally damaging car; consider, in fact, that the mass of batteries consumed by normal vehicles is several orders of magnitude greater than the number of Prius batteries that have ever been disposed of or ever will be disposed of. The deadly danger of Prius batteries is nothing more than a red herring, a scare story, a foolish but cute tale of environmental irony. It is EPIC FAIL on the rather obvious facts. No thinking environmentalist would believe such an idiotic story. Yeah, the Prius is still a car, and is not lots and lots better than your typical automobile, but only a complete lack of critical thinking skills could make anyone believe that it is more environmentally dangerous than most cars. It's not. Period.

Scummer

If I see a cleat mark in my Prius, I'm personally going to pay you a visit.

blacksquid

Agreed!

LAJ

Lifted and chipped diesel penis extensions and 2 wheeled V-Twin penis extensions are the ones that tend to cut it as close as they can. But, the one that scared me the most was the old lady in the Buick that was on the right hand painted line. The passenger side mirror brushed my hand. All I saw was white hair barely peaking over the headrest.

Never had an issue with a Prius, but they are a filthy car to manufacture, and to dispose of. Not only the batteries, but the circuit boards, the aluminum, and the shipping all over the world it takes to make all these components. But that's cool. All the Prius drivers can wave at each other n stuff. They can hardly give Hybrids away though that don't look like a Hybrid. Hybrid Camry's, Civic's, Highlander's, and Escape's just don't sell near as well as a car that screams "Just Look At Me Doing My Part".

grolby

See my post above; it's patent nonsense, in fact. Oh, the irony - the myth about the "environmentally horrible" Prius is in fact a way for those spouting it to feel superior to the allegedly stupid environmentalists driving their superiority-complex-motivated cars.

News flash, people: 90%+ of the people who make decisions that they believe to be more environmentally friendly are doing it because they care about the environment. They probably don't care what you think about them. Good intentions can go awry, but is it really so hard to let people have them?

TrippleB

And how old was the car you traded in to get that Prius? Or do you now just have another car?

How does it feel to know that you are more a part of the environmental problem than someone who drives his pickup truck into the ground?

Good intentions are fine, but ignorance is not. Buying a car is a big decision, both in terms of money and environmental impact; people making a wasteful choice when they think otherwise should not fall back on the "good intentions" excuse.