New Prius 2010 gets no respect on roads

I have driven my new 2010 Prius one week and been cut off at least five times. This never happened to me before in any car I've owned. My impression is that people see a Prius and figure we just putt along. I had a driver swerve around me in stop & go traffic just to get ahead one car length. I drive the same speed as everyone else but sense that Prius drivers are dissed regularly. Maybe they're jealous of our mpg.

i find that many prius drivers keep the appropriate space (one car length for each 10 mph) in front between cars because we are both safe and keeping glide/regen space in front of us. this really pisses some people off, and even though there is really no place for them to go, they speed and pass on the right just to leapfrog one space and still be stuck, but not behind the prius with that "too big" 3 or 4 car length space in front.

i have a friend who usd to drive an isuzu trooper. He was tauhgt to always leave like ten car lengths, for safety. So many people cars were interacting with him because of this too big space. Accidents happen a lot, i think, as cars interact (passing, changing lanes, blind spots, etc) and driving with him was very frustrating and stressful.

A similar event occurred yesterday. I merged into the right lane of a local parkway, when I attained 50 mph I merged into the next lane. There was a motorcycle about 100 feet back in the next lane, as soon as I merged he sped up, passed me in the right lane and cut me off forcing me to brake in order to avoid hitting him. This never occurred while driving my Lexus RX and is the first case of road rage I have ever experienced in my home town. I chalk it off to jealousy too.

I commute on 495 in northern Va and there are many impatient, rude drivers that aggressively drive around me. I think a Prius in front of them says "slow driver ahead" even if we are going the same speed as everyone else. There are alot of type A personalities out there behind the wheel that's all I can say.
I love my new Prius so there

If you drive the freeways and keep en eye open you will find that everyone gets cutoff at some point. I putted along at the speed limit yesterday during my freeway commute (63miles) and I saw some of the most asinine people cutting people off so bad that the one being cut off had to hit the brakes to avoid smacking into the person when traffic immediately slowed. I was just off more than everyone else simply because I was doing the speed limit and 805 of the others wanted to go 75mph+.

If they are cutting you off for absolutely no reason, like there is no one else in either lane around you then you can chalk it up to them just being arseholes. A great many people do have issues with the Prius and what they feel it stands for and how that image conflicts with their world or political view. Only advice I can give is ignore them and don't add any politically derived bumper stickers to your new baby, it only infuriates them like it does me when I see a Yes on 8 sticker......

I had this exact thing happen to me during a 2010 Prius test drive, and I too have never been cut off so badly in any of my other cars.

I was driving with traffic in the right hand lane along a residential street near the back of a cluster of about 10 or so other cars, when some crazy woman cut me off so badly that I had to move half way onto the shoulder to avoid her. The salesman said that she should be put in jail.

I watched her continue to zig and zag through the cars ahead of me so I'm hoping it wasn't just a Prius thing...

They may be doing it because of the Prius. But then I've been known to smack my head in frustration because I get behind a minivan because they're "always" slow, or when I get behind some dually that I can't see around. But just like in life, prejudice doesn't really work, does it?

So I just figure that clown who has to cut me off is just dumb. Then when I catch up to them at the light a couple of miles down the road I enjoy that feeling of smugness and try not to wave and smile (avoiding "road rage."). A lot of the time, I just figure I'm better off being behind them so I can watch them, rather than being tail-gated.

Here in So CA there are so many that I haven't really noticed. I see Prius doing 80 mph in the fast lane. I have noticed that it attracts a different crowd. So far two couples of retirees have inquired about the car when it was parked outside a restaurant. They told me that they owned Priuses. On another ocation an asian teenage girl with a Hello Kitty t-shirt commented to her friend as they walked by that the new Prius was cute. When I had my Volvo S60R college kids would tell me the car was cool.

I could be wrong (I don't have my new Prius yet, and I've never owned one before) but I think a lot of PriusChat folks overestimate the importance of the Prius in the world at large. Frankly, until I decided to buy one, I never took notice of Prii and would have been hard pressed to identify one on the road. And I've noticed that when my friends and coworkers ask me what car I'm buying and I tell them, a surprising number of them are really only vaguely aware of the brand and don't really know what it is.

Maybe there are some folks who have some anti-Prius vendetta. But I can tell you for sure, they're bound to be outnumbered by just plain idiotic drivers in a hurry.

I'm waiting to take delivery of mine and have wondered how much of a problem this will be. I live in the metro Detroit area, where plenty of people would actually like to ban the sale of all vehicles not "made in Detroit". I'd like to buy something from Detroit, all else equal, but I don't want to go backwards from my previous vehicle which turned in 42 mpg on the highway. Detroit really offers nothing to compete with the Prius mileage wise. While it looks like Ford has done a nice job with the Fusion, it doesn't offer the cargo space, the mileage is lower than the Prius, and it is more expensive.

Hi All,

I had a woman in a white SUV, with congressional plates (my congresswoman?) pass me on a down hill into a red light. Due to traffic I ended up in front of her at the stop light. Pissed her off apparently, as she did all sorts of cuttoffs back and forth between lanes , eventaully causing a loaded dump truck to nail its brakes as she cut in front of it. People will do all sorts of stupid things to proove they were right.

On another occaision, a 70 something woman scraped her damaged right front fendor along the side of my left fendor. Her fender was smashed in so much in the front that it was buckled above the tire to a sharp point. She started passing me in a no-passing zone, about 200 yards from where 15 cars were stopped at a light. When we got the tail end charlie, she had no where to go and was out there in the oncoming lane. I pulled to the right as far as possible, but there still was not enough room when the light went green. She told me I was driving so slow that I was missing the lights, even though we had both gotten through the last two lights together, and had to come to a stop at the light (driving too fast for the lght) where she scraped her car along side mine.


Another driver, this time in a Sububan tried to drive over the top of my hood where a slow merge is on the interstate. As the merge sped up, I accellerated, but in her lane there was a bunch of traffic. As she steered into my car I veered into the middle lane, and the car in the middle lane into the fast lane, and the car in the fast lane onto the shoulder. This lady had cut over into the merge lane from the right lane in an attempt to get ahead. When this was all over and done, there were three cars holding back traffic 100 yards back, as they apparently felt it was too dangerous up by the SUV.

When I drove my SL2, I had allot more trouble with people pulling out of the middle lane into the fast lane as I cruised down it at 65 mph. With the Prius I never have this happen. Right now I do not populate the fast lane. But the first year I drove it, when traffic was slower than 60 in the two slower lanes, I would be in the fast lane at 65. One thing I did with the SL2, was to dust any SUV out of the toll gate. Just to avoid them thinking their vehicle was any faster, and to avoid them pulling the crap like that Suburban driver did. With the gate-less tolling, the SUV people do not get this lesson, and I would not drive my Prius that way anyway. There was a reason to use the extra gas in the SL2, due to the traffic patterns. In the Prius, if I get stuck in traffic further down the road, its no big gas consumption deal, in fact its better for gas consumption, usually.

The sad thing is to see some political commentators picking up the anti-Prius screed:

• George Will - 'Prius makes no profit'
• Limbaugh - 'Nobody wants them'
• wing-nuts - three years ago, the right-wing nuts repeated every anti-hybrid fantasy

As for traffic, those incidents are brief, individual situations. I don't even notice, much less care. I'm responsible for my safety, not theirs.

Bob Wilson

I also live in SoCal and I've been getting lots of positive attention. I've owned 3 BMWs and it took getting a Prius to get noticed. "Is that the new one?" -- I get this everywhere.

I think the only hostility I can sense is from Gen II owners.

Prius drivers appear to be parinoid. Is it that parinoid people are attracted to Prius or is it the electrical currents flowing around in the Prius that causes the mind to start acting up on Prius owners?

Most people when they are pulling out in front of people do it so quickly they have no clue as to what they are pulling out in front of. I have people pulling in front of me all the time in my Expedition.

One thing I've found is that people (including my father-in-law) that pull out in front of people always think they are going to be driving faster than they are and they want to "beat" the car and get in front.

How many of you when you pull up to a light and the left lane is open you pull to that lane? You automatically assume the car in the right lane will be going slower than you. OK you Prius owners may not do that (anymore).

I'm glad i see I'm not the only oe having this problem. I have been driving for over 15 years and after i bought the prius i notice a sharp increase in people tailgatting me and cutting me off. It is starting to piss me off. I'm 6'3 and weigh 230lbs i'm getting to the point i want to get out of my car and talk to these people. I don't know what there problem is. I go the speed of the traffic one time i was going 75 in a 60 and had only enuff space for one car between me and the car infront of me, the jerk tailgetted me for a while, maybe ten feet from my rear bumper and then went around and cut me off. Then he had to slam on his brakes almost causeing a pile up.

I really don't know what to do about this, considering i don't want to go to jail or end up getting shot. But it just makes me realize that my thery about all people are right. very few people care aboout anything but there selfs. The fact that i'm driving a car that gets 55 mpg enrages people makes me even more happy to think that one day i do get to leave this world there not to much i'll miss. Like people upset cause i'm spending less than a third of what they spend on gas, so they drive in a mannor that risks my life, other people around me, and i even seen people doing this with there own children in the car. Risking there childrens life to make a point that there 3 ton 12 mpg suv can intimadate a PRIUS!!!!!

:target:

I don't think that it matters how fast you are going... someone is always going to want to go faster or be in front of you. Be careful out there! I will say that when I drive my Boxster vs. the Prius, everyone wants to race me.. it's silly... I'm not interested in proving anything to anyone on the road

Although I do not have my Prius yet. (Hurry up jabber ) I live out in the Chicago Suburbs, and it really is not about what car is being driven, more about the other drivers. I have been cut off by several different vehicles in my travels, and this is with driving either a minivan, sedan, or pick-up truck. Oh, and when I have been cut off, I have been traveling at posted speed limit (or above, when I need to keep up with the flow of traffic).

1. Some people think they are the only ones on the road, and that no one else is there.

2. Some people have such an "important place to be" that they will cut anyone off that they can, to get where they need to be.

3. Others believe that they are so important, that the other drivers will automatically make room for them and get out of the way.

4. Some just don't care in general and do what they want.

Most people, I believe, do care about safe and courteous driving. But there are always those few who make life miserable for the rest of us.

The better rule is 2 seconds of gap. Car lengths depend on which car you're using and are hard to estimate.

I've seen people around here who leave something like 20 car lengths in front of them. And even at a complete stop have 1 car length... Grrrr... Good way to double the length of the backup.

there is a big difference when driving a prius. I never had people go out of there way to tailgate me and or cut me off. There trying to say something, or make a point. What that point is idk, I already know that a three ton suv that gets 11 mpg, with three kids in it ridding ten feet behind a Prius is a annoying. So if they want to just go out of there way and floor it to tailgate a prius so be it i guess.

I really wish there was a rear mounter gun package then the rear hatch could open and a machine gun could rise out of the car then and only then i bet people would back off!!!

Some people work pretty hard to discredit and 'dis' the Prius. Meanwhile it just keeps selling more and more. The Prius and it's ilk will break the backs of the naysayers eventually.