http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=9859

MOST DRIVERS AVOID BMWS AND FORDS

Thursday 10th February

Which cars do you avoid?

A new survey has turned the tables on some long-held myths about which motors are best avoided on the roads. Modern drivers, it seems, are no longer keeping out the way of Volvo-man, ‘prats with a Porsche’ or ‘louts in a Land Rover’. And the old jokes about Skoda drivers and ‘Nissan nannies’ are but a distant memory.

Today, they are most keen to avoid those with a BMW or Ford, perceived to be the motors owned by the worst motorists. Not far behind are Vauxhall, so perhaps ‘Astra man’ is still considered something of an enigma on the roads.

Quoteacar.co.uk asked 400 of its customers to nominate the make of car they thought the worst drivers owned.

Joint top were BMW and Ford drivers with 13 per cent of the vote each. In third, Vauxhall drivers got eight per cent of the vote, closely followed by those in a Mercedes (five per cent).

At the bottom of the table there were some very mixed views. Expensive makes like Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls Royce all scored very low, presumably because voters believe that when you’ve paid a lot of money for a car you’re going to drive it carefully. Less obvious low scorers were Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki and Saab.

"We appreciate that our customers are most likely to have answered this question based almost entirely on personal experience, so perhaps the results reflect the volume of particular makes on the road rather than a specific type of person who buys them," says Quoteacar’s Spencer Street.

"There was a time when if you saw a Volvo or Skoda you were fairly sure just what sort of person was behind the wheel, typically old and driving very slowly. Today, these stereotypes are not nearly so clear-cut, though it’s still fair to expect a certain personality when confronted by a Ferrari, Porsche or TVR.

"But with over 10 million motoring offences committed on our roads every year its obvious there are still a lot of bad drivers out there, even if it’s not entirely fair to characterise them by the make of car they drive.

"And don’t forget, despite what they drive, the 10 per cent of new drivers on our roads still account for 29 per cent of all accidents. But then experience is not so easy to see."

I was thinking about this, and its true, people seem to instantly hate you if you drive a BMW and some take great pains to be annoying and inconsiderate, like reducing speed in front of you on a perfectly good hazard free road for no good reason when they know you can't overtake, they don't let you out of junctions etc etc etc.

Yes, it annoys me, and I'm still childish enough to react in a retaliatory fashion so the legend is self-perpetuating - "look at that ***, typical BMW driver overtaking like a bat out of hell" instead of questioning themselves WHY the person was so eager to get past them, and, no, it's not cos we have an allergic reaction to the left hand side of the road

What's the difference between a hedgehog and a Discovery, anybody?

Women drivers are an interesting topic.

As far as insurance claims go, they are a far better risk than men, but this seems due to they normally do short journeys, around town, and most bumps they have tend to be low speed annoying bumper scrapes in car parks.

Men on the other hand have far fewer of these, but when they do have a bump, they tend to write at least one of the vehicles off.

To see women in their true light you need to observe the "school run".

Everything that is sensible about women in general just goes out of the window when collecting their offspring.

My poor wife is a crossing patrol lady ( dayglo lil ), very very rarely does a man fail to stop for her, even those collecting their own children.

Women fail to stop regularly, they have knocked her over, knocked the "lollipop" out of her hand, caused her and children to scatter, they will park where she is crossing, sometimes whilst she is in the middle of the road actually crossing children, and will even argue with police officers who pop up occasionally to protect her, and they will " park" ( read abandon) their vehicles absolutely anywhere.

Womens driving standards ( in general ) seem far lower than mens, ( I have noticed this whilst doing work for the IAM ), and this seems largely due to their lack of car sympathy, they don't seem to know or care as to how something works, but I also think it is down to lack of experience, they only seem to get to drive the car whilst hubby isn't around.

That excludes the growing number of HGV lorry drivers, I have noticed if a lorry does something nice for you these days, its generally driven by some nice looking dolly bird.

Interesting  Comments Nigel, So--here we go--your poor wifes experience,s as a LollyLady, are an example of the Real truth that is never shown in a survey or safety feature.

If one looks at the actions and manners of women while doing their shop in Tesco , you will notice most are displaying the "Tesco Syndrome" .This is a Far away look, as in a trance-while pushing the trolley into an object, or crossing aisles without Any looking or notice of an approaching fellow/ess , and displaying the look that turns cream sour--cos its YOUR fault-even if you were standing still.

This is then transfered onto the roads sometimes with aggression as we all see every day, can this be due to the Pre menstural Tension or hormone problems.???

Disagree with the" only drive when the hubby is not around"-- women drive to their jobs, for the jobs with own cars--its about concentration for all drivers, some have it-some dont, and it applies to both sexes, be it a BMW or Micra driver.

I see just as many women as men,  sitting in the offside of an empty dual carrageway, with no turn right coming up, both are in another world.

The oft quoted -women have fewer claims than Men, is as you might expect from insurance and Govt, the usual Mis-Information method of stats.Male drivers outnumber female 8/10-my guesstat-do far longer distances and overall total milage each year,So are Far more at risk of an accident-for far longer-in more congested area,s .So its news !! Men have More accidents.The insurance brokers who offered lower premiums to women drivers, admitted there wasnt any difference.

So Nigel and Wifey , watch out for the Tesco +++++ syndrome its all around, and you DONT always Want 2 for 1.

Coasting,

Firstly when i wrote that I was drunk and my response was one of anger since this topic is one that really anoys me.

I think you would be supprised just how many people continually harp on about the war. Last time I was in the pub and Germany were playing some other European country I discovered that no matter who the other team is, even Argentina, you can't support Germany. Why I asked? 'because of the war' was the response. This was the view from a large number of the people in the pub. I have heard this same veiw applied to cars on many occasions.

On the subject of generallisations, I tend to find that most of them don't have any basis in truth anyway. I can honestly say that I have never noticed the drivers of any particular make car driving any worse than any other.

As for Nissans, I've been raced by a Nissan Primera before now. I've also been held up behind an Aston Martin doing 25 on a 60 road, stuck behind a Porsche Boxster in the outside lane on an empty motorway doing 65, cut up by an idiot driving a Saab etc etc. IMO the notion that you can determine how some one drives based on the kind of car they drive is false.

It works the same way the horroscopes and other such mumbo jumbo. The horrorscope says you are going to come into money, you buy a scratch card and win £25 so it must have been fate, predicted in the stars. In the same way you are told that BMW drivers are bad drivers so when one cuts you up you remeber it and it confirms what you have been told, despite the fact that 10 other cars cut you up that week, but because they weren't BMW's it hardly registered and you forgot about them. In other words if you look hard enough for anything you are much more likely to find it and you only tend to notice the evidence that supports your view.

Getting a very interesting topic, even if Peter was drunk at time,lol! Again, interesting from Nigel, and sympathys to Jackie, must be worrying getting used for target practise, especially when trying to keep children safe.

Agree with B7VP, like the idea of the female "1,000 yard stare", thinking about it I've been knocked down from behind when using my stick/walking frame stood still in those circumstances, and attitude was "well you shouldn't have been standing there". I don't think it's a male/female thing as much as generally driving standards have got atrocious over the last 5 years, most of us have done Horsetan's road rage quiz ! IanT