(CNN) — The science is looking pretty unanimous on this one: Drivers of expensive cars are the worst.

A new study has found that drivers of flashy vehicles are less likely to stop and allow pedestrians to cross the road -- with the likelihood they'll slow down decreasing by 3% for every extra $1,000 that their vehicle is worth.

Researchers from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas speculated that the expensive car owners "felt a sense of superiority over other road users" and were less able to empathize with lowly sidewalk-dwellers.

They came to this conclusion after asking volunteers to cross a sidewalk hundreds of times, filming and analyzing the responses by car drivers.

Researchers used one white and one black man, and one white and one black woman -- also finding that cars were more likely to yield for the white and female participants. Vehicles stopped 31% of the time for both women and white participants, compared with 24% of the time for men and 25% of the time for black volunteers.

Are rich people more unethical?But the best predictor of whether a car would stop was its cost, researchers discovered. "Disengagement and a lower ability to interpret thoughts and feelings of others along with feelings of entitlement and narcissism may lead to a lack of empathy for pedestrians" among costly car owners, they theorized in the study.

And the discovery of a car-value-to-jerkish-behavior correlation isn't new; the research, published in the Journal of Transport and Health, backed up a Finnish study publishedlast month that found that men who own flashy vehicles are more likely to be "argumentative, stubborn, disagreeable and unempathetic."

According to that survey of 1,892 drivers by the University of Helsinki, those deemed to have more disagreeable character traits were "more drawn to high-status cars."

Man survives after driving off the top of a parking garage in CaliforniaBut it also found that conscientious people often favor higher-priced vehicles, too. If you're reading this while stuck in traffic in your brand new BMW: yes, you're definitely in that category.

"I had noticed that the ones most likely to run a red light, not give way to pedestrians and generally drive recklessly and too fast were often the ones driving fast German cars," Helsinki University's Jan-Erik Lönnqvist said in a press release.

He set out to discover what kind of person is more likely to buy an expensive car, creating a personality test of Finnish car owners.

"The answers were unambiguous: self-centred men who are argumentative, stubborn, disagreeable and unempathetic are much more likely to own a high-status car such as an Audi, BMW or Mercedes," the press release states.

These personality traits explain the desire to own high-status products, and the same traits also explain why such people break traffic regulations more frequently than others," Lönnqvist added.

His study cited previous research that indicated drivers behind the wheel of a costly vehicle are more likely to flout traffic regulations or drive recklessly.

But he also found people with "conscientious" characters seek out pricey models, too.

"People with this type of personality are, as a rule, respectable, ambitious, reliable and well-organised," the statement said. "They take care of themselves and their health and often perform well at work."

Source

 

well yea... a supercharged V8 uses a lot of gas, why shouldn't a pedestrian just wait another 2 seconds for me to go past? people use no gasoline at all, it's environmentally irresponsible to make traffic stop just because a person didn't want to wait a few more seconds

i always avoid standing near a crosswalk until all the cars have cleared, i'd hate knowing that i caused a bunch of people to have to brake and then accelerate again just so i could cross the road

plenty of times at school i'd see a bus with like 3 people on it have to come to a hard stop at the bottom of a hill because some person just started walking through the crosswalk not even really paying attention to what was coming

 

well you don't buy an M5 to drive slowly do you? if he's driven any fast german cars he'd know that they're good at going fast lol

 

^^^^ Probably getting irrelevant today. Today's upmarket/luxury vehicles stop themselves when they detect a person or obstacle ahead. Whether that would include pedestrians waiting on the side of the road or not would depend on the sophistication of the sensors and cameras.

That stereotype used to apply to a lot (not all) of BMW 3-series drivers, more than those of other luxury makes. But, as BMWs have become more mass-market and less of an "Ultimate Driving Machine", that stereotype is probably waning, too.



My own experience, though, (and I have been driving for many-years) is that V8-powered Mustang drivers, as a group (and that would include GT, SVT, Boss, Mach-1, Cobra, and Shelby drivers) are generally the worst for aggressive driving and doing risky maneuvers. there is something about Mustangs, even more than other pony cars, that invites careless driving. I have almost been hit a number of times by them, even while I was driving perfectly sane and minding my own business. Of course, even with them, that does not include the whole bunch....there are a lot of good Mustang drivers as well. (I guess they figure their insurance is already high enough...why take a chance on making it even higher LOL?)

One other thing that this study may or may not have taken into consideration is that, with the rise of the leasing business, many not-so-rich persons are (now) able to drive more expensive products than they could normally afford on an outright purchase. That was not so much the case in the past, when, more often, you actually had to have a lot of money (or rich parents) to own an expensive vehicle. The leasing business, today, is what keeps a lot of luxury and upmarket dealerships in buisness.

 

I don't care how fast an M5 is.........that is not a license to run red lights.

 

Drivers of MB, BMW and Audi generally drive like douchebags, at least here in NY and they are young. Entitled brats driving daddy's car.

 

that's gotta be addressed on a case by case basis, and whether or not there's a camera

 

hey I at least bought my own eventually lol

 

doesn't mean you're not a douchebag.

 

an entitled one at that

 

I always try to let pedestrians go ahead of me. I figure that I’m sitting comfortably in my heated, dry car (or air conditioned, cool car) and they’re out, exposed in the weather. I’m not so important that I can’t stop for a few seconds to let them go. Feels like the decent thing to do.

 

Agreed. Same here.

I have found that being courteous to people comes back to you, like a boomerang, in ways that you are sometimes not expecting it. There is a reason for the Golden Rule.

 

Well what would you expect from a fake as hell news source - CNN. Good Grief. The human race in general has degraded rapidly the last 15+ years. Happy Days & enjoy your ride while using your turn signals and being kind.

 

Edit. I deleted my post because I didn't want to get into it...

(What happened to the delete button in the Edit field?)

 

There's jerks everywhere. Sometimes the worst are trolls who hide behind a computer. I try to ignore them and enjoy life.