I suppose, deep down within us all lies the potential to be a jerk. I’d like to believe that for most of us, these latent seeds of jerkiness remain in their dormant phase, held in check by your cell’s natural anti-jerkiness organelles, the dejackassochondria and the endoplasmic de-redickulum, the one with the ribosomes on them. But that doesn’t mean the jerkiness doesn’t exist. It just means it’s held in check, precariously, and we must all accept that those checks and balances could – and can – fail.
Sometimes it’s stress or general life pressures that wear us down and allow the jerkiness to escape. Sometimes it’s other people. And other times, yes, it can be a car.
A car! That most glorious of machines, the most worthwhile product of human endeavor, yes, even a car can be the catalyst that brings out your Inner Jerk. And not just any inner jerk: your inner driving jerk.
For me, the car proved to be a Lotus. Not the lovely old Lotus above, which I just stuck in here for the hell of it, but a 2014 Lotus Evora I had for a week back when I worked at the Old Site to do one of my Will It Baby stories, back when my kid still fit that description.
The car was phenomenal to drive, and it just felt so damn good when you pushed it. It was a car that really worked with you to make driving engaging. The problem was you had to sort of be in an engaging driving situation to take advantage of it. And that meant this car helped unleash some really jerky driving habits in me, just to force engaging driving situations.
Did I weave in and out of slower traffic like I was in a rally just because it felt so damn good? I sure did. Did I take off too fast at stoplights and send it into highway on-ramps at twice the legal speed just to get that sensation through the wheels and pedals, to feel my body shift with the weight of the car, to be intoxicated by the speed and control and visceral feeling of the car as a prosthetic, and extension and enhancement of your own body?
Did driving like that make me a jerk? Absolutely. A big jerk.
Now, I’m very used to occasionally driving cars with performance well above my daily driver. My daily has 52 horsepower; it’s a pretty low bar. So I often find myself unwittingly speeding in press cars, but I’m still not driving like an absolute jerk, like I did in that Lotus. Even in really powerful, fast cars, I can usually contain myself. In those, it’s not so much that I drive like a jerk as it is that I feel frustrated, because having to hold back a 500+ hp car in traffic has all the joy of stopping peeing mid-stream. It’s frustrating.
But that Lotus! That wonderful, intoxicating Lotus, it made me a stupid jerk, and I love it for that, but I’m also glad I don’t own one, because I’d feel guilty all the time, knowing what a jackass I am on the road. Our own Mercedes drove one fairly recently, and I think she would back me up here.
Maybe I’d get used to it? Maybe. Luckily, I can’t afford a Lotus, so I think the roads are safe from one more jerk, at least for a while.
I’m gonna be honest and say my 1996 Toyota Aristo V8 i-four, typically because of early morning commute fatigue and it’s freed up exhaust and good handling also happens to free up the fact that i can b e faster whether i should or not. I swear though it’s just my locale having a 55 speed limit on the interstate and 2 lanes for 60% of the drive and people doing said speed limit in the only passing lane ;-; i swear i try n o t to be a jerk but sometimes i fall weak to it.
That’s one of the nice things about the early NA Evoras. They aren’t particularly fast. They are still fun as hell to drive, but knowing that a slightly clapped out WRX is gonna eat your lunch at a stop light gives one pause.
Thankfully, Evoras are also fun to drive slow.
I’ve gotta guess there will be a lot of Mopar in these comments.
The first car I noticed being a jerk in was my E36 325is. It had relatively short gears, the torquey inline 6, and it was small and nimble. It had enough power and handling to be able to sneak into basically any opening on the highway. I never spent any time behind somebody going too slow, I rarely got in the right lane before right before I needed to get off, I turned into a “weaver”. It made me realize why BMW drivers are usually considered some of the biggest assholes on the road, because it’s so easy to be an asshole in one, even if it’s 28 years old.
My fast Ford is okay even with most Chevy owners, but bmw guys seem to hate it on sight.
It’s weird.
Had a bmw trying to weave through morning traffic, absolutely nothing you could do in that.
Brake checked me repeatedly, me in a Nova with the heavy steel bumpers until he caught me.
Crinkled up that chrome bumper cover on the bmw like it was wadded up foil. Sort of was.
Longbed dually crewcab (with or without camper installed). Yeah, I AM bigger than you, YOU WILL move out of my way. NO I will NOT be intimidated by you. I WILL take over four parking spaces when I park.
Honestly, I’m a bit more retaliatory than I should be. If I’m getting tailgated for not passing as fast as someone wants me to pass someone I’ll sometimes just slow roll the rest of the pass and my lane change when I am able to move over. If it’s REALLY egregious tailgating, I’ll match speeds and stop passing.
I don’t know if it was the car or the location or some combination – but I noticed myself driving like a jerk on a work trip to Houston a few weeks ago. Only car the rental place had when I landed was a white Altima. As I was returning to the airport and missed my first exit, then was doing some weaving to get to the next exit and proper lane of the side road, I was thinking what it would look like if someone posted dashcam footage from behind me and saying “Typical Altima driver”
I don’t drive like a jerk in my Lotus.
But that might have something to do with there being no spare body panels for it any more.
I do drive the shit out of it though, when no one else is around. There are loads of engine and gearbox spares.
Driving my square body Suburban in SF. Will I fit in that parking spot? Damn right I will. You don’t like me actually stopping at a stop sign, well, I’m just going to stay here blocking this street until you figure out how to stop using your horn. You’re going to brake check me? Say goodbye to all that plastic on the back of your car, my winch will be meeting the contents of your trunk. Oh, you’re going to block me? Watch me drive over the this concrete median and go around you.
But, I especially loved my neighbor on my tiny, one block street, that would call the city everytime I parked on the block and claim my truck was abandoned. I figured out who it was….
Evidently any Charger or Challenger. I’ve not driven either, but based on observations I would become a jerk driver instantly if I ever did.
I don’t “drive” like a jerk in it, but I certainly consistently “sound” like a jerk in my Escalade V. Just 20mph burbling down the road like a true dick, but man I am laughing, hooting and hollering the entire time. In actual sports cars I don’t ever really drive like a jerk or rev the engine much but in that thing? my god.
I drove like a jerk in my dad’s 2001 Impala (bone stock model) and pissed off my Homecoming date before the dance, that was a dumb choice. I also drove like a jerk in the first car I purchased myself, a 2006 Pontiac G6. I got a few tickets and had a few close calls… I haven’t really driven a car since then that caused me to drive like a jerk… If I’m driving someone else’s vehicle, I’m generally on my best behavior as the thought of wrecking someone else’s vehicle terrifies me. That said, there will be a day I get a car that enflames my jerk driving…
My wife (who I love to the ends of the Earth and back) got a Honda Pilot this year after driving a clapped out Malibu for far too long and I have to say, it changed her… Just rolling around like a tank with no F’s given…
My Fiesta ST is impossible to drive like an adult. Even with my kids in the backseat.
Sounds like it’s a party.
I lived in Miami for a while. It could, in my option, be the jerkiest place known to man (includes places like Cairo and Nairobi). Now you would think that swapping lanes all the time, tailgating is a jerk move. Yes, I can see that. However in the actual “Dexter” books, which were accurate in the portrayal of Miami. One of the things “Dexter” did to get his day off to a good start was drive the speed limit. It would instantly transform everybody around him into jerks. Kind of like a magic trick. I tried it, it works. I have also tried it in SoCal, same thing. So I find, that if I am in a mood, think mischievous glint in the eye, I try driving the speed limit. I areas of high jerk concentrations, it can be very entertaining. It is best in some kind of, “nothing to lose” car.
Usually when I’m behind a Subaru…..
Oh wait, you mean when I’m behind the wheel? My wife’s Edge Sport. That thing is so damn smooth and the engine just pulls endlessly. I even like the fake sound symposer that it has.
My dad’s 2022 Porsche Macan GTS. It feels incredibly high strung, and it’s not hard to find yourself going 100mph when you thought you were going 75. Gap in traffic? You can almost always make it in the Macan. Sitting up higher gives you a better view of the road, which makes one more confident in such manuvers. I’ve borrowed it occasionally and found myself driving in a way I hadn’t since my teenage years. This car suits my dad perfectly, because he frequently drives like a lunatic.
My mom now has a standard Macan and the driving experience is night and day. Hers is still quick, but more relaxed. Pushing the gas pedal down a couple centimeters doesn’t mean shattering the speed limit, for example.
The Nissan Rogue I rented last week in LA. The delay in restarting because of the stop/start made me lurch forward when it finally kicked in after a couple of beats. Not a smooth drive at all and one of the worst examples of an annoying technology I’ve experienced personally.
I had a 2000 maxima and an ugly commute every day. I don’t think it was the car that demanded asshole driving, but the situation. Traffic was ALMOST loose enough so that you could drive at the speed limit in the morning. Of course, you’d always find someone hogging the left lane going 5 under and two more cars next to them creating a wall of stupid and empty road ahead of them. I absolutely flogged that thing almost daily trying to nip around people who were looking at their phones instead of driving, holding up traffic needlessly. I got way too good and tucking into really tight spaces with that thing and it ate the abuse pretty well.
I doubled down on the asshole factor and replaced it with a Black BMW 545i 6MT. Now I was a V8 powered prick in a black BMW. How gauche. I saw a LOT of middle fingers, well deserved, but it’s amazing how when you’re an asshat in a rusty powder-blue maxima, nobody cares. Do it in a BMW, you’re just holding up the stereotype. That BMW was a delight to abuse, but colossal shitheap more often than not. I replaced it with a 5th generation Camaro SS and got a work from home job.
I drive like a normal human in the Camaro despite it being a good bit more powerful than the BMW was. What helps is that it’s bright green and has a personalized plate. In the BMW, you’re just another asshole in a black BMW. Now, there are like three of my cars in the entire city. If I behave like a shitstain, it’s not too hard to spot me. Between the pressure of being spotted acting stupid and the lack of a commute, I am now a reformed, ex-asshole driver who has seen the error of my former ways.
There was a fluorescent green Mustang here, maybe one other in a car magazine, unless they were the same car.
So one day they rob a bank in that green car in daylight!
A car that can be seen from space!
I had an 08 350z for about 5 years, every speeding ticket I’ve ever had came from the first 2 years of ownership. Learned to contain it but the urge to go way too fast was always there. It’s about half the reason I sold it; I drive like a grandma most of the time and that kind of internal conflict is hard to deal with.
Any rental car – it’s not mine.
I have yet to find a vehicle that forcibly makes me drive like a jerk.
My mother had a Honda S2000, and I would drive that car like an absolute asshole every time I drove it. Every single shift was at 8,800 rpm, like God intended.
She drove it like the grandma she is. She just wanted a convertible. I drove it some with her and she smacked me at the first 8,000+ rpm shift, yelling “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?”
I don’t use turn signals when I’m driving my BMW. (Yes, it actually has them.)
Maybe BMW drivers think there is a surcharge every time you engage the blinker.
Maybe they’re on subscription and that wasn’t included in the lease?
My recently purchased Evo definitely seems to encourage bad behavior. From lane changes that occur before you’ve even finished thinking about them to the the feel and the sound of the turbo spooling up. This is slightly offset by being very aware of just how much attention the car is drawing so I try to behave, and not wanting to push it too hard and break some part that had been discontinued a decade ago.
My partners GTI. I only drive weak ass 4 bangers that barely have triple digit horsepower, when getting in the VW and hitting boost it’s irresistible to not go faster