Everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, everyone who drives faster than me is a maniac [1]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ (George Carlin)
Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to an open/free version of the original paper. I'm always extremely sceptical of papers like this that seemed designed to grab headlines and confirm most people's existing biases.
I tend to think owning a overly-powerful car (which includes basically all German turbo diesels) is more likely to encourage you to drive fast.
I'm not a great driver... no serious accidents on four wheels in 20 years of motoring, but plenty of very near misses and I've messed myself up on two wheels a few times.
I'm definitely a slower, more careful driver since I got a Prius. It's the kind of car that gives you a few moments to think about why you just put the pedal down before it does anything.
If I drove an S3 or a Tesla P I'd be just another one of those otherwise conscientious idiots driving too fast.
That’s definitely something you notice on the German autobahn. The ones that are 1mm on your rear bumper or constantly give you “Lichthupe” are often smaller Mercedes, BMW or Audi. I have rarely seen sports cars like Porsche or Ferrari behave that way.
in my locale, Tesla drivers are far worse than any BMW/Merc/Audi. The combination of pretentiousness and a car that promotes unconscious driving leads to bad outcomes.
The real title and abstract of the study here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642
"Not only assholes drive Mercedes. Besides disagreeable men, also conscientious people drive high-status cars. [--] An important implication is that the association between driving a high-status car and unethical driving behaviour may not, as is commonly argued, be due to the corruptive effects of wealth. Rather, certain personality traits, such as low agreeableness, may be associated with both unethical driving behaviour and with driving a high-status car."
My wife calls them pr-audis.. it’s particularly bad in New Jersey where no matter what road, time of day, how fast you’re driving, there’s always a praudi driver on your rear who seems to be really angry you are in front of them.
There was a time when BMW's advertizing seemed to be very specifically aimed at the self-important, entitled, yet insecure person, but I think that has changed (or I have just stopped paying attention.) Nowadays, bad driving seems to be more widely spread - a combination of "fuck you, I can do whatever I want", self-absorption and inattention, as typified by the 'pick any lane and drive at any speed' style of driving, and the people who insist on hanging right on my rear quarter.
There's also a new class of drivers, the new SUV owners. Most of them seemed to have bought it for safety and are still driving overly slowly no matter what.
Lexus drivers are the worst in the US.
The study was actually titled "Not only assholes drive Mercedes. Besides disagreeable men, also conscientious people drive high‐status cars."
Treehugger implied that they couldn't print the title because of the word "asshole", but maybe it was because the title contradicts the message that they're trying to send with the article?