Car marketing teams try to come up with model names that make people think the best things about their cars. They don’t want you to think they are just good; they want you to think they are the best. It’s always about the superlatives… and being superior.
As I ride my bicycle around town, I’ve started noticing these feelings of superiority migrating from the cars to the drivers of the cars… or at least there are drivers out there that believe they are superior, simply based on driving the car they are driving.
For example, when I ride in areas outside the city, the superior car on the road is the older American-made pickup truck with the teen-aged driver. You know the truck is superior, because you can hear it coming and going. You can see it using up the entire road. If you collide with a large old American pickup truck, you’re vehicle will take far more damage than the truck. That’s superiority. For some reason, that feeling of power infiltrates the mind of the driver, especially the younger driver. On many occasions I’ve been honked at, yelled at, and even forced off the road by drivers and passengers in these trucks. “Roads are for cars! Get your bike off our roads!” This is obviously a gross generalization, but it’s happened often enough that it’s the first thing that crosses my mind when I see a teen-ager driving an older truck.
Around town I see almost the same behavior from drivers of hybrid cars, especially Toyota Prius drivers. These people have chosen a car they believe is better for the environment than all other cars. I’m not going to argue one way or another about the truth of that belief. The important thing is that they believe it. I don’t know if they drive a Prius because they are superior, or if they are superior because they drive a Prius, but for some reason they are now superior. How do I know this? Because they tell me all the time, both in words and in deeds.
Just this week I’ve been forced to stop or drive off the road by the driver of a Prius on several occasions. In asking other cyclists, the Prius phenomenon is not unique to me. Many of them have noticed the pattern as well. It’s another gross generalization, but it’s one that people are starting to talk about. Twice this week a Prius, while stopped in traffic, saw me riding up the wide-open bike lane next to the stopped line of cars, and maneuvered their car to block the entire bike lane. When I was forced to stop, the driver lectured that cyclists should be forced to wait behind the cars just like all the cars are forced to wait. “You wouldn’t try passing on the right if you were in a car!” I would if I was in my own wide-open lane. It’s not just annoying, but also very dangerous and illegal to pull into a bike lane just to prevent bikes from getting by.
I find it ironic that so many Prius drivers behave almost identically to the drivers of the big behemoth gas-guzzling trucks they try to contrast themselves against. If your car makes you superior, or you drive a certain kind of car because you’re already superior, then I call you an Auto Supremacist. And you’re part of the problem.
