Automotive Profiling

Keith Tanner wrote:

PHeller wrote:

Knurled wrote: If the driving lights are on, the driver is fairly clueless and probably isn't paying attention to anything, either. (Goes triple if the lights are on during the daytime)

I drive with my headlights on, and purposely turn them on everytime I drive. I prefer to be seen. Add that into your analysis.

Headlights aren't driving/fog lights. Not the same. Ram truck drivers get a pass on this one, though. The stock headlights are hopeless, you can only see if the (more powerful!) fogs are on. At night.

Not just the Ram drivers, the Dakota and Durango drivers too. I know, I'm one of them!

I don't trust anybody with a vehicle over 3000lbs.

PHeller wrote:

Knurled wrote: If the driving lights are on, the driver is fairly clueless and probably isn't paying attention to anything, either. (Goes triple if the lights are on during the daytime)

I drive with my headlights on, and purposely turn them on everytime I drive. I prefer to be seen. Add that into your analysis.

Actual headlights have regulations regarding beam pattern and aim. (Plus, just about every car on the road has DRLs, anyway) "Driving lights" don't, and in OEM applications are generally only good for blinding oncoming traffic and lighting up the spot in the road 5 feet in front of the bumper.

Bababooey wrote: I don't trust anybody with a vehicle over 3000lbs.

On further reflection, that sentence could end after four words

I dont know if this counts or not, but "my" car is a 1999 Infiniti G20 - its gont about 165k on the clock, and is a reasonably fun car despite the insufficient quantity of pedals available to the driver. I drive it like god intended - in such a way as to extract the maximum amount of fun from my drive while inducing the fewest incidents of bodily harm. I like driving...anything...so I make it fun whenever I can.

The "wife's" car is a 2010 Terrain. Its a reasonably fun car to drive, even though its big and heavy (comparatively anyway). 3 liters, direct injected, 300 or so hp at the crank...plenty of go. But I only ever drive it when we are together...I dont know that car as well as I know mine. I dont know what certain little sounds mean. I cant translate little feedbacks in the GMC like I can in my G20...so I dont drive it the same. I almost dont like to drive it because I know its not going to be as fun. But when I do drive it, Im in grandpa mode...mostly because the car feels foreign to me, but also because SWMBO would not regard my attempt at 4WD drifting in a snowy parking lot NEARLY as the fun and harmless activity that I would view it as

I adopt the personality of the car I am in. When I hate to rent a moving van, I get all trucker. When I am in a sport car, I drive like a getaway car driver. When I am in a minivan, I get all responsible and slow.

While working at Motion Dynamics, we specialized in the 2.3L Turbo Ford engine and the SVO, TurboCoupe, and Merkur that were all powered by these engines. After a little while, you can tell what kind of person you're dealing with when they mention their car, or vice versa when the car pulls in. Please allow me to share this "profiling" with all of you, my dearest friends...

SVO owners: Generally very cool people. Easy to get along with. Usually very intelligent. Usually have money and want to go as fast as humanly possible or take that car back to 100% original condition using nothing but original parts and are not scared to spend $500-$1,500 for a damn marker light assembly.

Merkur owners: Usually shiny happy people. You should feel privileged and blessed to be able to even set eyes on their car, much less sell them parts OR, heaven forbid, work on the car!! They are generally broke as hell and want a "buddy deal" even though they're graduates of the Douchebag Academy of Douchenburg and have a Doctorate of Douchery. They don't care how fast the car is. They don't care to go back to 100% stock. They only want parts that will make their car continue to run for the perceived 1 million miles this superb piece of German engineering should. Why? Because it's made in Germany damnit!!

TurboCoupe owners: Usually stoned. They use "man" and "dude" and "bro" a lot when talking to them. They want to go as fast as humanly possible on an extremely limited budget of dimebags and Bud Light. Somehow though, they usually are able to do it. They would mostly call up to tell me how they did it. Dude man bro.

different cars for me = different driving styles ... in the (berkeleying huge F150 I sorta ease along staying in the right hand lane out of everyones way and wishing there was something I could to increase the gas milage ), that damn thing is huge, and I'm not accustomed to driving something that barely fits in it's lane

when I'm in the Integra I do like to push it some ... especially when driving the twisty mountain rds here in WNC , when I'm in the CRX (usually going to an a-x), because of all the stickers on it I generally drive fairly conservatively ( though going through the gorge ... I40 into East Tn .. at 5:30am) I usually don't get below 75 .. ( speed limit 55) ... Mom's Neon .. well I generally try to NOT drive it anywhere

Curmudgeon wrote: ...the clerk said 'Why is it always big guys who get out of tiny cars?'.

The principal of my middle school was about 6'-4" and drove a Midget year round.

One of my college professors was about 300 pounds, and drove a 1st-gen CRX for the entire 4 years I was there.

I think the car affecting the person is a much bigger factor than the person choosing the car. I can actually tolerate the awful slow driving around here when I'm driving the Samurai, in the 'rolla it's infuriating.

I've always been a more engaged driver, mostly driving smaller manual transmission cars, then I bought my first Lexus - the enormous and comfy LS400. In the first day I found myself going too fast running up on people when they're stopped at lights - you truly can't tell how fast you're going in those things. On the second day, which was a perfectly beautiful spring day with the sun finally out banishing the last of the winter, I found myself driving with the windows closed, a/c on, talking on the cell phone ordering a set of tires, with my credit card in one hand. I realized "it's happening - I'm becoming a Lexus driver! OH NO!"

Curmudgeon wrote: JohninKansas and I are in the same boat, I'm a big guy with an affinity for small cars. I pulled into a convenience store parking lot in a Spitfire, another guy driving one pulled in at the same time. We were both roughly the same size, about 6' and maybe 190 pounds (damn that was a long time ago ), the clerk said 'Why is it always big guys who get out of tiny cars?'.

ha ha! I pulled up at the locally-owned hardware store in the Miata once, and one of the members of the family that owns it was out front. He said "seven feet tall and he drives a clown car!!"

In reply to Lesley: Love the userpic- Gull-wings represent!

My personal nemesis car-wise has almost always been the Geo Metro. Not 2 months after buying my first car, one going too fast dodged around some backed up traffic and broadsided my Beretta, taking out the rear axle and requiring my parents loaning me the money to have the car repaired. It was some small consolation that the Metro was TOTALLED. And I don't mean the damage just added up to more than it was worth- almost NOTHING forward of the firewall was still attached to the car. As a credit to GM's engineers though, the woman driving it walked away uninjured. I always maintained that I should have painted a small Metro under the driver's window of that car...

My driving style does change somewhat depending on which of my two (drivable) cars I'm piloting- half out of necessity and half out of personal preference/ego....

The Saturn sedan is virtually invisible to others on the road. It is however a DOHC model with a 5-speed, and I don't exactly drive it like a half-senile grandmother- I probably push it more than people expect, and as it's mildly modified (very mildly) it also surpasses what others expect. But generally, I drive it about what I would consider 'normally'- push the speed limits on the highways along with everyone else, take chances with lights that have just turned yellow, and count on nobody paying any attention to the Blackberry Saturn SL2.

Now, the DeLorean.... that's a whole different situation altogether. EVERYBODY notices it- and far too often is more interested in paying attention to it and/or wildly gesturing to anyone else in the car than they are in driving safely and smartly. I have to be twice as alert when I'm driving it as I am when in the Saturn- nobody hovers in my blind spot for an eternity trying to take pictures or get a better look at the Saturn, people don't drift dangerously close to it because they're busy staring and not watching the road, and people don't roll down their windows and yell, "EIGHTY-EIGHT MILES AN HOUR!!!" at the SL2.

All of those are commonplace in the DeLorean. I've been driving down a 4 lane highway and had 4 cars- in my lane and the ones on either side- all matching speed and taking pictures. I rarely exceed the speed limit with it- I'd get pulled over in a heartbeat by any cop who noticed that- though whether they'd actually give me a ticket or just lecture me and gawk at the car is something I've thankfully yet to have an answer to. So it has to be driven a LOT more defensively than almost anything else I've ever driven. But it's still WAY too much fun...

ransom wrote: A creepy van guy?

Hey now, I drive an undercover pedovan(sherriff's brown) so I can hang out near schools without drawing attention

In reply to Ashyukun:

I spent a day in a DeLorean - by far the most attention-getting vehicle I've ever driven. I had more people stare at it than the SLS in my picture :-)

Lesley wrote: In reply to Ashyukun: I spent a day in a DeLorean - by far the most attention-getting vehicle I've ever driven. I had more people stare at it than the SLS in my picture :-)

Oh, no doubt. You've generally got to be a car person like most of us to appreciate the SLS and many other cars that may deserve more attention than the DeLorean, but it stands out so much due to its stainless skin and so many people immediately recognize it as 'that car from Back to the Future' that pretty much anyone alive now has some reaction to it (even kids who may not have seen the movies, because it still looks like a spaceship to a kid today just like it did to me when I first saw one some 30 years ago when I was a kid...). At DCS (the biennial Delorean Car Show) in 2010 we had a new SLS and a pristine concours DeLorean and Bricklin that the professional photographer did a shoot of- it was a very cool 'gull-wing family photo.'

I (and pretty much every other DeLorean owner I've talked to that actually drives theirs...) have long maintained that it's impossible to a) not like dealing with people and b) not be in a good mood when driving a DeLorean. You have to like or at least tolerate dealing with people because they WILL come up and ask or comment on the car, and it's just such a fun car it's impossible to not enjoy it.

Slight caveat: it IS possible to not be in a good mood when something goes wrong and you're stuck on the side of the road... but at least you know there won't be any shortage of people who will stop and ask if they can help. And down the line, you can look back and laugh at the humor of being stuck on the side of the road trying to fix a DeLorean dressed as Marty McFly beacuse it broke down on the way to a Halloween party.

Toyota Camrys..... I avoid them like the plague they are.

Slower the car, the more agressively I drive it.

In some ways, I miss the rusty 91 grand-am that I drove for awhile (called it the Grandammit) Had rust holes in it and was rather shabby. Drove it like I wanted to kill it. Merging onto the highway was like the parting of the red sea! People feared it.

I drive an '89 Accord with a fart cannon, short ram intake, and NO other mods. It has an I (heart) my Honda sticker at a 45 degree angle at the top of the windshield. What on Earth does that say about me?

In reply to Derick Freese:

That you're well down the road to be just as bad as the flat brimmed hellaflush civic douche next to you?

People always ask what kind of muffler I have on my DD fukus.....I just give them a blank stare and mention its a full stainless magnaflow catback. 80% of the time this comes next, "Well, how much did you pay for it?" They seem shocked and appalled I bought it for $50....which is usually less than they paid for their fart cannon.

Tangentially-related topic: I've noticed that if a car I see has any sort of body damage to it, that damage correlates with how said vehicle is being operated:

-Damage to the front end: Driver waits until the last minute to stop at red lights and traffic jams. Usually driving very quickly.

-Damage to the front sides/fenders: Driver drives exceedingly quickly and swerves in and out of lanes.

-Damage on the doors and rear quarters: Driver drives erratically, weaves, and in general seems clueless about anything going on outside of the car's windows. Usually on a cell phone.

-Damage to the back end of the car: Driver stops unexpectedly, rides the brakes, and in general uses the brakes a lot.

-Damage to the roof: LOOK OUT!!!!!

Derick Freese wrote: I drive an '89 Accord with a fart cannon, short ram intake, and NO other mods. It has an I (heart) my Honda sticker at a 45 degree angle at the top of the windshield. What on Earth does that say about me?

That your 10 years out of date compared to the current "scene"?

Things were simpler back then...

Now hellaflush, flat billed caps, and such are actually things.

What does it say that I am waxing nostalgic for fart cannons with questionable (and unpainted) bodykits? At least it seemed that more people were into cars back then.

In reply to yamaha:

Yea, the fart cannon goes as soon as I get around to installing my other exhaust. The intake has got to go, too, but I don't have a stock setup for it. Pretty much everything on the car is as it was when I bought it, except that it runs and drives now.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: -Damage to the front sides/fenders: Driver drives exceedingly quickly and swerves in and out of lanes.

'cept the damage to my fender came from some shiny happy person the shoved a shopping cart into it

In reply to Apexcarver:

People still are, its just modern teenagers aren't getting vehicles because all their friends are on social media, XBL, PSN, etc......why would anyone need a car these days to "hang out" with their friends. Next thing you know, they'll be bitching about being fat and not having a job.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: -Damage to the roof: LOOK OUT!!!!!

Seems I remember a DD parked in your yard that suddenly had some damage on the roof... hmmm