
New Finnish study confirms that BMW and Audi owners drive like idiots - onreact
https://www.treehugger.com/cars/new-finnish-study-confirms-bmw-and-audi-owners-drive-idiots.html
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jp57
The study was actually titled "Not only assholes drive Mercedes. Besides
disagreeable men, also conscientious people drive high‐status cars."

Treehugger implied that they couldn't print the title because of the word
"asshole", but maybe it was because the title contradicts the message that
they're trying to send with the article?

~~~
perceptronas
Probably, even the author is not specified.

 _A Finnish professor of social psychology found that_

~~~
hopia
I don't know where the original paper is either, but Finnish news cite a
person called Jan-Erik Lönnqvist as the professor.

~~~
samuli
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642)

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perceptronas
Everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, everyone who drives faster
than me is a maniac [1]

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ)
(George Carlin)

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mattmanser
I do recommend counting cars you overtake and those that over take you.

Turns out I was overtaking 10 cars for every car that overtook me. I've calmed
down since then as it really put it in context how fast I was driving.

~~~
usaphp
It does not show anything, most of the cars you overtake are cars that are
just preparing for an exit from highway or just entered the highway thus they
have slower speed

~~~
mynegation
I do what Mattmanser does on long highways with not too much traffic as a
proxy of me going with the flow. I discount merging vehicles, it’s harder to
take into account exiting vehicles but with exits being rare that works ok.
Also: waze

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lawlorino
Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to an open/free version of the original
paper. I'm always extremely sceptical of papers like this that seemed designed
to grab headlines and confirm most people's existing biases.

~~~
trevyn
[https://sci-hub.tw/downloads/2019-12-08/04/10.1002@ijop.1264...](https://sci-
hub.tw/downloads/2019-12-08/04/10.1002@ijop.12642.pdf)

~~~
mcagl
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danw1979
I tend to think owning a overly-powerful car (which includes basically all
German turbo diesels) is more likely to encourage you to drive fast.

I'm not a great driver... no serious accidents on four wheels in 20 years of
motoring, but plenty of very near misses and I've messed myself up on two
wheels a few times.

I'm definitely a slower, more careful driver since I got a Prius. It's the
kind of car that gives you a few moments to think about why you just put the
pedal down before it does anything.

If I drove an S3 or a Tesla P I'd be just another one of those otherwise
conscientious idiots driving too fast.

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Ididntdothis
That’s definitely something you notice on the German autobahn. The ones that
are 1mm on your rear bumper or constantly give you “Lichthupe” are often
smaller Mercedes, BMW or Audi. I have rarely seen sports cars like Porsche or
Ferrari behave that way.

~~~
agumonkey
often I wish that roads had "wiper" cars that would fill the whole width and
drive at the maximum limit and not more. :)

~~~
PappaPatat
Much better solution:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECS_(speed_camera)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECS_\(speed_camera\))

Basically two cameras at a set distance that measure the time it took from
location A to B and calculates the average speed. Works like a charm: no more
speed differences.

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sda2
in my locale, Tesla drivers are far worse than any BMW/Merc/Audi. The
combination of pretentiousness and a car that promotes unconscious driving
leads to bad outcomes.

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tuukkah
The real title and abstract of the study here:
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642)

"Not only assholes drive Mercedes. Besides disagreeable men, also
conscientious people drive high-status cars. [--] An important implication is
that the association between driving a high-status car and unethical driving
behaviour may not, as is commonly argued, be due to the corruptive effects of
wealth. Rather, certain personality traits, such as low agreeableness, may be
associated with both unethical driving behaviour and with driving a high-
status car."

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mattrp
My wife calls them pr-audis.. it’s particularly bad in New Jersey where no
matter what road, time of day, how fast you’re driving, there’s always a
praudi driver on your rear who seems to be really angry you are in front of
them.

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zweep
What exactly is the pun being made here?

~~~
justwalt
Proud, I think.

~~~
jhoechtl
Could as well be prol for proletarian

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mannykannot
There was a time when BMW's advertizing seemed to be very specifically aimed
at the self-important, entitled, yet insecure person, but I think that has
changed (or I have just stopped paying attention.) Nowadays, bad driving seems
to be more widely spread - a combination of "fuck you, I can do whatever I
want", self-absorption and inattention, as typified by the 'pick any lane and
drive at any speed' style of driving, and the people who insist on hanging
right on my rear quarter.

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agumonkey
There's also a new class of drivers, the new SUV owners. Most of them seemed
to have bought it for safety and are still driving overly slowly no matter
what.

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hartator
Lexus drivers are the worst in the US.

