Audi drivers - the new swines of the road?

DesB3rd

Some people do take it personally!

The drive is not that the ownership of a certain car necessarily implies the nature/driving style of the owner, rather that there may be a statistical leaning, slight though it might be, towards certain types of individual (i.e. driver) choosing certain types of car.

I hold to the broad observation that BMW’s unchallenged 80s/90s ar5ehole stereotype seems to have spread across the market. No great surprise as the concept of “sports” saloons/estates, once BMW’s thing was a raging 80s-tastic success & has now been adopted by many others, in Audi’s case with a wholeheartedness (in marketing terms, if not product) that makes present day BMW seem demure. Manufacturers who aren’t at this party are rarely absent through choice.

The “sports” concept (and it attendant brand image) is the issue; the pitch is intended to appeal to young (inexperienced), thrusting (impatient), aspirational (high opinion of their abilities) types, or at least those who might like to be perceived as such. It’s not to say that those shopping within this market segment all are like this, or they all live up to the pitch when placed behind the wheel, but it must lead to a statistical leaning in that direction.

Anyway I prefer to go on colour; there’s always a “wanker zeitgeist colour”, currently its handbag white.

nickellis

You all seem to have forgotten the biggest culprits...or should I say cul'pr!cks'.

Cab or Taxi drivers.

Especially in London, pulling u-turns, failing to indicate, and as soon as some numpty waves a chubby arm in the air their glued to the curb with an anchor thrown out the back to stop.

As soon as I see one of the special luminous badges I prepare to enter the pearly gates with tire marks across my pelvis.

Cu*ts

dg74

Have to say that I have noticed a lot of BMW and Audi drivers giving plenty of space up here in Newcastle/Northumberland.

Having immense trouble with the smaller car now, Smart, Hyundai, Toyota Yaris, etc, and not to forget the usual ar$eholes in their corsa's/fiesta/honda civic.

Wheelie Bin

a_n_t wrote:

I've got an A4 avant. No one will give you more room than me!

Ditto. Just got mine and I'm not going to risk scratching it against some crappy old Cannondale.

ready2burn

Im with Pross... they are idiots about everywhere on the road. I don't think cyclists are even necessarily the worst off, we just take more note of bad drivers when cycling because we feel more vulnerable. Admitedly i have only been cycling for a few weeks... but the worst near misses i have had have all been car v car.

I once had a guy tail-gated me for about 3 miles... i was doing approximately 32ish in a 30 - the norm in the middle of my town... at 3:30 when the schools kick out ad its uuuber busy. Pulled into a local car park with a parade of shops and he followed me in, got out of his car and started screaming at me.

I put it down to him being a moron. I guess if this happened to a cyclist it would be plastered across the forum etc.

I think the general rule is there are complete morons everywhere!

(oh and i seem to remember that the car the guy was driving was a peugoet 306.

liamb93

tbf i think its not just audi drivers (although i had a row with an audi drive other day) its drivers who are tossers in a rush that cause problems not just audi ,bmw or vectra drivers.

Redhog14

Ok so just to resurrect this:

I drive a BM used to drive an Audi, GF currently drives an Audi - never seen her try to mow down a cyclist.

Been too close for comfort to the following:
Audi
BMW
Citroen
Kia
Landrover
Ford - fiesta, focus, mondeo, transit
Nissan
Porsche
Peugeot
Renault
SAAB
Vauxhall
Volkswagen
seems to me the driver is the person at fault and not the machine.. I think you just like to highlight the BM,Audi's etc due to stereotypes - like blonde women are thick and men can't find anything.

CharlesM505

I drive an Audi RS6 but due to being a cyclist, you won't see me over taking fellow people in a hurry, yet i am part of an 'enthusiast' group for RS model Audi's and some people are very stuck up their own arse's so i doubt some giving space personally.

Remember though, it is the driver, not the car. After all more expensive cars are normally driven by elderly people who possibly have more respect than youths in beat up honda's.

bails87

CharlesM505 wrote:

by elderly people who possibly have more respect than youths in beat up honda's.

That's not my experience (I know, anecdotes* again! )
I find younger drivers much easier to 'control' through road positioning. Older drivers seem more likely to just drive at/through me, regardless of the space. There are good and bad of both, but if I had to choose who was overtaking me it would be the young drivers.


*My view is possibly distorted by the psychotic old gimmer who used to almost hit me on a semi-regular basis on my commute, regardless of if I was in my car or on the bike, he actually clipped my arm once, told me to F*ck off then sped away.

Best pass I've had recently was from a very pretty girl in a shiny new M5, waited 50 yards behind me for at least half a mile before calmly overtaking completely in the other lane. Worst was from a middle aged guy in a pug 307 who clipped my arm then jumped out to punch me :roll: It's the driver, not the car!

dynohub

jellybellywmb wrote:

I drive over 60,000 miles a year and have never had an accident or speeding ticket in 25 years of driving.

Car History

<stuff deleted>

Porshe 911 Boxter

<stuff deleted>

Was it a 911 or a Boxster? If you drive so much I would have thought you would know what car you were driving? (And how to spell its name)

Seriously though, I admit to being a fair weather and convenience only cyclist (which is why I only pop in here every blue moon) and I am indeed a "car enthusiast".

The stereotyping is interesting though, because there is probably (as with many stereotypes) some truth behind it. If I see badly cared-for car or bike, I'm wary - they neglect their vehicle so they probably don't operate it properly either. Audis and BMWs are, on the other hand, "aspirational vehicles" (and there are cycles that fall into the same category). The problem with "aspirational" cars and bikes is that many of them are used by people who care far too much about the impression they (think they) are giving to others. Such people - both drivers and cyclists - are frequently aggressive and, in reality, poor drivers/cyclists. Enthusiasts use cars and bikes for their own pleasure - these might be classic (and well cared for) or high-end (as opposed to aspirational) - and take a pride in how they operate their vehicle.

(To be out in the open about things, I have an old but well maintained Apollo cycle and drive a Porsche 911)

rick_chasey

Car accident rate by brand and colour.

dynohub

It's very pretty - but what do the figures actually represent? ie 20% of what?

rick_chasey

dynohub wrote:

It's very pretty - but what do the figures actually represent? ie 20% of what?

Of drivers driving that car who have claimed for an accident in the last 5 years.

dynohub

Rick Chasey wrote:

dynohub wrote:

It's very pretty - but what do the figures actually represent? ie 20% of what?

Of drivers driving that car who have claimed for an accident in the last 5 years.

Thanks. The figures look strange to me - silver is just about the most popular colour for Porsches, yet no claims are shown for silver Porsches - I'm sure plenty have been involved in accidents. Also, don't forget that clams don't imply fault of course...

rick_chasey

dynohub wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

dynohub wrote:

It's very pretty - but what do the figures actually represent? ie 20% of what?

Of drivers driving that car who have claimed for an accident in the last 5 years.

Thanks. The figures look strange to me - silver is just about the most popular colour for Porsches, yet no claims are shown for silver Porsches - I'm sure plenty have been involved in accidents. Also, don't forget that clams don't imply fault of course...

Depends what they insure, right?

dynohub

Rick Chasey wrote:

dynohub wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

dynohub wrote:

It's very pretty - but what do the figures actually represent? ie 20% of what?

Of drivers driving that car who have claimed for an accident in the last 5 years.

Thanks. The figures look strange to me - silver is just about the most popular colour for Porsches, yet no claims are shown for silver Porsches - I'm sure plenty have been involved in accidents. Also, don't forget that clams don't imply fault of course...

Depends what they insure, right?

Indeed, I found this from confused.com which is completely different (doesnt mention colour):

Confused.com reveals the unluckiest make of car
06 Jun, 2011

Unluckiest carWhich drivers have the crashiest cars? Based on 12 months’ worth of customer quotes, Confused.com looks at the make and model of car with the highest accident rates:

1) Top of the list was Honda’s FR-V six-seater: between them, 2,529 owners of these vehicles made 466 accident claims in the past five years. That’s a claim rate of 18.4 per cent or almost one in five.

2) Next came Volvo’s XC90: of the 3,886 drivers of this model who bought cover through Confused.com, 619 made claims for accidents – a rate of 15.9 per cent.

3) The Lexus RX had a claim rate of 15.5 per cent (574 claims out of 3,701 drivers), followed by the Mazda 5 (15.3 per cent, or 373 out of 2,431).

Also in the top 10 vehicles for claims were Honda’s Jazz and CR-V models, Volkswagen’s Touran, the Hyundai Santa, the Toyota Rav and the Mazda 3. Each had a rate of about one accident claim for every seven vehicles insured through insurers on the Confused.com panel.

Lowest claim rates

We also looked at which cars were least likely to be involved in accident claims.

Apparently the ‘safest’ of all was the Mazda 2 TS TD – out of a total of 1,076 owners, only nine accident claims were recorded in the last five years. That makes a claims rate of less than one in 100.

Also hovering around the 1 per cent claims-rate mark were Nissan’s Skyline, the Ford Focus RS and the Fiat Cinquecento.

Confused.com’s head of car insurance, Gareth Kloet said:

“Car accidents are rarely a result of mechanical failures: they are more often caused by human error or just bad fortune. It could be that drivers of this model happen to be more careless or reckless than other motorists. Or it could simply be that this group of road users has been particularly unlucky in the period when the data was collected.”

Confused.com’s statistics show just a snapshot of accident-related claims made by owners of a particular make and model of vehicle. So it is worth stressing that if one particular car appears to have a relatively high rate of claims, it does not follow that this vehicle is inherently more dangerous than others.

This research reflects only the experience of Confused.com customers: other companies’ figures could show different trends. *Figures are based on quotes from Confused.com, between 11 May 2010 and 11 May 2011, based on all types of accident claims: this means those where the driver of a particular vehicle was at fault as well as cases where the other party took responsibility, and claims where no blame could be apportioned.

DesB3rd

Liking the stats table; noting that aspirational & "sporty" brands cluster towards the top end of the table.

I'm interested that someone else notes older people as a hazard; only recently noticed this but just about every close-shave overtake I've been subjected to in the last few months has been the work of a grey-top driver. Less Mr Magoo ineptness, rather a blithe lack of concern or simpathy.

bails87

Interesting to see grey Saabs with an 'accident rate' of 28% (3rd highest). The psychotic gimmer mentioned above drove a grey Saab. W14 ERO if anyone's interested in avoiding him. If there was such a thing as karma he'd have wrapped it and himself round a tree by now.

diy

unless there is an adjustment for volume and mileage, the above is meaningless.

sfichele

diy wrote:

unless there is an adjustment for volume and mileage, the above is meaningless.

Why?

Mileage is a misnomer. Motorways have a better safety record than urban areas, so scaling by pure mileage makes no sense. Secondly, some owners may be very safe/experienced drivers and do lots of miles, whereas there will be motorists that do very few miles but are "unsafe" drivers.

In addition, this is a study conducted over a lot of samples! A particular type of car+colour will have been used by hi and low mileage users, which means the whole thing averages out, so adjusting by mileage will likely not change the results.

diy

Some of those brands make vehicles across a wide range of types whereas others are more specialised. Ford vs. porsche for example. Then you have brands which are more likely to need expensive repair vs. those where you might not bother. Add to that the distribution of ordinary cars in the make vs. performance cars which will hide any trends. To put it another way it's like saying road casualties are down because you have gone from 200 killed and 3000 seriously injured one year to 300 killed and 2700 seriously injured the next. Big numbers should not be compared against small numbers, as they mask them. You could probably compare ford to vauxhall, vw etc. but the volumes in the sample are key. I'd guess for example that in the 1m samples you'd have probably 10 times more fords than porsches in the data.

sfichele

diy wrote:

You could probably compare ford to vauxhall, vw etc...

The data and results do compare makes, right column! :P

MattC59

That data looks a bit hit & miss (excuse the pun !) without any info on how it was collected and what the controls were.

But on the plus side, I'm about to buy an Audi A6 3.0l Le Mans

pinno

Volvo drivers are even worse.

Phil Fouracre

Human nature, I'm afraid! Just like statistic that says wearing a helmet increases your chances of having an accident. Perception of safety increases risk taking

negativelycra

Phil Fouracre wrote:

Human nature, I'm afraid! Just like statistic that says wearing a helmet increases your chances of having an accident. Perception of safety increases risk taking

Possibly, but I believe that helmet cams might be a byproduct of being an arsehole, rather than being unsafe being a byproduct of helmet cam.
However, my research has only been conducted on youtube, it may not be conclusive

Phil Fouracre

Yeah - nothing wrong with You tube surveys. Hours of entertaining fun. Still can't quite get my head around some peoples attitude. Hours of helmet cam ranting at drivers then take a look at 'silly cyclist' vids. Too much confrontation for me. Don't know about anyone else, but, we have two vehicles and nine bikes- so where are we in the great bike/car conflict?

The Mechanic

The "perception" of safety by the average person does not always agree with reality, statistics or anything else. I suspect that this is also the case with the Audi/BMW driver issue. I would be interested to see some proof, if there is any. The table from Tiger seems to related to insurance quotes so the claims stats quoted may not relate to the car for which a quote is being sought. A scientific study would look at the actual car being driven at the time of the accident.

tiredofwhiners

The whole argument is b*llocks.

A driver who has one type of car one day and another type of similar power, size, speed etc the next, does not materially alter their driving style and approach. To suggest otherwise is as stupid as saying that to make drivers safer, they should only be given an equivalent car to the one they possess but in a different 'safer' make.

There are bad drivers and good drivers and suggesting that the make has a direct bearing is fatuous at best.

Philly8mt

Pross wrote:

WTF? I suppose this thread has got the usual rants from the usual suspects! Could it just be that people in shiny cars get noticed more than those in drab 10 year old wrecks? Or could it be there's a few bitter and twisted class warriors on this forum who dislike the fact that others have better cars than them? Besides, what happened to the white van man stereotype? Surely they are the worst drivers on the road? Then again what do I know as I must be a particularly bad offender having had 2 BMWs, an Audi and currently a Mini as company cars (just ordered a VW Golf) so I must be a real c*** as Dilemna would say! I'm just glad I've never owned a Vectra as I'd be beyond redemption. Dilemna seems to be the opposite side to the coin of someone like James Martin ranting on about motorists and always using the 'c' word to describe anyone driving anything with an engine. I can't see how the type of car has any bearing on how someone behaves, an idiot is an idiot no matter what car they drive or if the are riding a bike / walking and there's a fair few of them on this forum.

Well said .... From an Audi driver!!