Hacker News

I went from a "sleeper" stationwagon to a Subaru hatchback

Drove both the same and the performance was pretty much the same, but the optics were a lot different and I didn't think it would matter so much.

The amount of times I get people merging in front of me at the last second to go the exact speed they were already going behind someone else took me a while to understand until some 70 year old did it and then I eventually was next to them at a stoplight and he started waving a fucking gun at me. Screaming about how I was a danger to everyone, when I had been going five mph over when he swerved in front of me to hit his brakes.

My car now looks fast. No one blinked an eye at a staionwagon going 5 over, but if my Subaru is going faster than someone, suddenly it's a personal insult against their masculinity. For some reason it's a challenge they just can't stand for. Especially the ones in giant trucks.

And jackasses with no power in life, wants to do things that make them feel powerful. That includes making themselves vigilante traffic cops.

It creates a feedback loop where some people do shit like that, and it just makes the other people legitimately driving too fast or too furious drive even faster and more recklessly because they just got away from someone like that.

So you've got the extremes on both ends fucking with each other while like 90% of other drivers are just trying to get somewhere without dying so someone can feed their ego.

My Subaru is awesome, but my next car I'm definitely going back to something that looks slow so I can go back to not standing out to people with rage issues. I'm really looking forward to the day humans aren't in charge of driving anymore. I love driving, but not constantly watching out for crazy people.