Are Toyota Prius owners bad drivers? Turns out a study has the eco-friendly car tied with BMW owners, but when it comes to speeding tickets even the drivers of a Corvette or a Dodge Viper are less likely to have a lead foot.
One related report by the Inquisitr has an example of a really, really bad driver: look at the example of the Toyota Prius owner who stole a burmese python , wrapped the snake around the neck, and went for a little drive.
Fortunately, most Toyota Prius drivers are not that bad. A recent study by Insurance.com indicates that the Toyota Prius C has the 20th-highest percentage of owners reporting at least one ticket. In comparison, the highest number of speeding tickets goes to sports cars like the Subaru WRX, Pontiac GTO, and the Scion FR-S.
Wait a minute, doesn’t that mean Toyota Prius owners are really not all that bad? It turns out horsepower has very little to do with bad driving habits. The sports cars that dominate the top 10 for speeding tickets happen to be in a lower price bracket in comparison to cars like the Corvette, which has a MSRP of $54,000.
“The Chevrolet Corvette, Dodge Viper and Nissan GT-R rank well below average for tickets even though they can easily double the highest speed limits,” said Des Toups, Insurance.com’s managing editor, according to Fox 13 . “But those cars are also costly, so their buyers tend to be older and take fewer risks. If you have an accident, it helps to drive up the rates of everyone who owns that kind of car. Tickets tend to drive up your rates alone.”
Does this mean the legendary mean, green hybrid-driving machines are not that bad? Toyota Prius owners are not off the hook that easily. According to Oregon Live , researcher Paul K. Piff of the University of California Berkeley reached a conclusion which was almost the opposite of Insurance.com, claiming that the owners of expensive vehicles tend to be aggressive drivers who don’t like sharing the road with others. For example, when it came to yielding to pedestrians at crosswalks, “BMW drivers were the worst,” which reminded reminded them of an old joke: “Despite its good brakes, a BMW will usually stop with a jerk.”
In the end, Toyota Prius owners were still said to be the best of the worst. Piff claims that “Prius drivers had a higher tendency to commit infractions and dismiss vulnerable road users than other car owners.”