Profile and Prejudice

Published on by D. G. Hart

A sojourn to the east coast by way of an internal-combustion-engine-empowered vehicle (aka car) reminded me of at least one acceptable prejudice that remains available to Americans — automobile profiling. I dare say, 80 percent of drivers in the U.S. size up other drivers on the basis of the car they drive. With a high end car, a BMW or a Lexus, we make assumptions at least about the socio-economic status and the driver’s willingness to drive fast. Add a vanity plate like VULGR1, and you can make even further assumptions about the driver’s character. (Truth in advertising, this driver has an OLD LIFE plate. Surprisingly, that combination of letters was still available in Michigan when we arrived.)

Another prejudice that most perceptive drivers have is one about those who sit behind the wheel of a mini-van. These are vehicles that may have lots of functionality, but have to be as dull in design and performance as The Brady Bunch. That means, if you are like me, you try to pass a mini-van driver as quickly as possible, even if it means racing ahead at a stop light or passing on the right. Is it fair to assume that all drivers of mini-vans (especially younger women) are slow drivers who will keep you from your appointed rounds? Maybe not. But almost no one wants to take the risk of finding out.

Of course, automobile profiling is not as loaded with social costs as racial or ethnic profiling. But acknowledging that we do make assumptions about people based on makes and models of cars does suggest that making judgments on the basis of appearance comes naturally to homo sapiens. I imagine that back in the day when all men wore suits, ties, and hats, and women wore dresses, gloves, and high heels, profiling people outside vehicles was much more difficult than it is today when clothes, hair cuts, tattoos, and studs are chosen to be a personal statement (like a vanity plate).

This seems like another version of the cultural inconsistency that attended the news that NSA was reading my email (as if it’s that juicy). Americans take umbrage at the thought that government officials are invading our privacy at the same time that we divulge intimate matters on widely accessible social media outlets. In the same way, Americans take great offense at the idea that others might judge us on the basis of our appearance even while we fashion a public image that invites others to draw a conclusion about our identity based on “style.”

50 thoughts on “Profile and Prejudice”

  1. “… That means, if you are like me, you try to pass a mini-van driver as quickly as possible, even if it means racing ahead at a stop light or passing on the right. Is it fair to assume that all drivers of mini-vans (especially younger women) are slow drivers who will keep you from your appointed rounds? Maybe not. But almost no one wants to take the risk of finding out …”

    Not hardly! My experience has been that these “baby carriage” (mini-van or those downsized SUVs) drivers are the ones who go hundreds of mph, cut people off, run stop signs, etc. rushing single-mindedly to get from point A to point B as fast as possible, the surrounding citizenry be damned. I try to avoid them like the plague, especially when I’m out and about on the bike.

    BTW, according to the following stats (if you place any faith at all in exit poll interviews) these soccer moms are the same demographic who by and large brought us what’s in the White House today:

    http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/exit-polls.html
    and
    http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls

    And BTW again, especially in the 2008 election, note which religious to which order the majority of these belong.

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  2. I refuse to wash my car for this very purpose. My 2003 Saturn Ion, for all it’s troubles, is a rather reliable vehicle (minus the lack of A/C). Why spend 30 minutes washing a car that will maintain its $2k (you like that reference?) value whether it’s washed or not (ever). My boss told me he will buy me lunch when I wash my car. I responded by saying “The rainy season is in 2 months”.

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  3. Got to agree with you there, Nate. Just for fun, the other day I surfed into KBB to see the value of my wife’s ’99 Acura and my ’00 S-10 pickup. Turns out the pair of ’em are now worth less than $5K together. Can’t drive any cheaper plus I do most of my own maintenance and repair work, so there you go.

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  4. I like profiling on Sunday mornings. The SUV with hipster frames and “Love Wins” sticker is going to the emergent or mega church. The plain vanilla minivan with the Ichthus and/or “JesusIsComing.com” sticker the local Baptist church. The big white conversion home-school van that seats 18 with the “Dykstra12” plate is going to the little Dutch Reformed church. Everybody else is headed to either Art Van or IHOP.

    I am almost always right. Does that make me a bigot?

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  5. Zrim – don’t forget about the oversized SUV’s with the respective state’s environmentalism-themed license plates on them. The irony is just too great. BTW, we were touring around in SW Michigan country for a few days last week with a couple of friends and happened to travel around the GR expressway loop for bit. Nice looking downtown area, from a distance anyway. And if I saw the name Dykstra once I must’ve seen it a hundred times.

    And I was just thinking the same thought (scary!) about being profiling, stereotyping, or whatever you want to call it nowadays, given the current topic. I came to the conclusion that it can’t be bigoted if it happens to be true 90% of the time, can it?

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  6. This is where I expect Zrim, Sean, and MM will start trading barbs about driving Subarus. Please don’t disappoint me.

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  9. Zrim, I think per your own admission, transgendered might be a better fit. So Subaru is perfect. Profile complete.

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  11. Zrim, I drive a Honda Accord with unrepaired body damage. I don’t know the year – maybe 2003. Profile away, but I like to meditate on not remembering the last time I made a car payment.

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  12. So very pleased to see the opening car/model be my very own. BMW. M5 to be exact. Very fast. I am a snob.

    Oh, and my wife drives a BMW 750IL, the 1997 Bond car. (James that is). And also very fast.

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  14. Bruce – when I first heard about how BMW was powering the M5 I began to worry for the safety of the people who bought/drive them, especially considering it’s relatively low curb weight – therefore weight/horsepower ratio. Be careful in that overpowered little speedster.

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  15. Bruce, I can’t find the link, but Phil Hendrie has a wonderful bit involving Ted Bell flipping the bird to a person driving a mini-van with an evangelical fish on it to prove to an McLaren SLR driver that he (Ted Bell) also owns a McLaren SLR. Ted’s problem is that he is only driving his wife’s Beemer at the time. He expected the evangelical to turn the other cheek. He didn’t expect the evangelical to threaten to rip Ted a new one.

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  16. 2003 Honda Accord: TKD dancer, likes to lather up with udder cream and practice fan kicks in front of a full length mirror in his bicycle bib, shirtless, while also video taping himself. Nailed it.

    Last twelve years; Corvette ZR1(swinging single), pickup truck(got old), occasionally drive it like I used to drive the Vette. Not the same.

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  18. “Americans take umbrage at the thought that government officials are invading our privacy at the same time that we divulge intimate matters on widely accessible social media outlets.”

    Huh?
    If there is anything that Amuricans are not doing is taking umbrage. NSA, the TSA, national healthcare, Natl. Defense Authorization Act, Fed QE/non tapering. It’s all good. Adolph would have loved the compliant citizenry. “It can’t happen here so we’re good to go” is the prevailing mantra.
    But hey, just how many “too big to read” bills have our “representatives” passed?
    More than your average bitter clinger to religion and guns has got fingers on one hand or two?
    Does it make any difference?

    I expect to have my intelligence insulted if I had a TV to turn on, but please don’t insult my intelligence and take away the simple pleasures of reading on the innernet. I already have nightmares and hear footsteps with my fingers in my ears.

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  19. @George

    Hey, man. I’ve got a mid-to-large SUV and had environment-themed plates on it in my previous abode. I guess I’m safe now because I’ve just got the standard-issue plate.

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  20. Nothing says “weak” or evokes chortles like my 2000 Echo. The medium is the message, brothers.

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  22. I’ve always wanted a DeLorean, particularly one with a flux capacitor. But all I’ve got is a Mitsubishi Endeavor (or as my middle daughter used to call it, the “itchybitchi”).

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  23. Sean, you seem to have a little hostility. Come with me and seek peace on the yoga mat. You have some compression shirts, right? And when you fall over during an inversion you can find a use for your judo by rolling out of it.

    Speaking of which, I thought of you when I saw the video of the bikers dragging that guy out of his SUV. Sean would have handled that, I thought – he would have just started rolling away from those guys. They wouldn’t have any idea how to handle a roller.

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  24. MM, figures you do yoga. I can see you in your yoga pants and sports bra.

    I heard something about some yankees beating on each other. First rule is never get out of the car. If you do, come out bearing a weapon and whatever happens kill the guy in front of you. I’d like to see someone try to pull me from a vehicle. Sounds like he had the right idea running over them, just keep on keeping on. You got to be careful who you menace when you’re riding a bike, motorized or otherwise, you’re still the one with just a bike.

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  25. “just shoot him” – how very Texan of you. Just like they do in them there movies. Do you guys drive Chevy Unibrows?

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  26. Hey don’t take out your repressed heterosexuality on me. It’s not my fault you started lathering up, wearing spandex and putting a stick in your nether regions while cavorting about on two wheels. I imagine that, combined with all the soy you eat has done some damage. We don’t practice kung fu panda down here, if you’re feeling froggy best jump first.

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  27. The family hands me their Buicks when the lease is up.

    Not my first choice of car, but no complaints in the slightest.

    Not sure you can completely read me from seeing the car in public, maybe more than I really wish you are able to though…

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  28. A few months ago I bought a 1994 GMC truck off of some Mexican guy (no, it wasn’t stolen, yes it is lowered, and yes, there were about six crucifixes scattered throughout the cab).

    Since then, when driving around the neighborhood I have gotten a few worried looks, which disappear once they notice that the driver is just some nerdy white guy.

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  29. I have really come to miss the sweet irony of the “War is NOT the Answer” and “No Blood for Oil” bumper stickers that were popular around the advent of the Iraq War. I am sure the drivers did not stop to think that maybe in some indirect way their dependence on the automobile contributes to the need for wars for oil.

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  30. So, Jed, which is better: a “God is Green” sticker on a Yukon or a “Jesus is a Liberal” sticker on a PT Cruiser that’s been scratched out by someone who thinks he’s more like a Republican? I can never decide.

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  31. Zrim,

    Actually, the worst are those “Coexist” bumper stickers made up of all the different religious symbols.

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  32. Even worse . . . Any vehicle with the “Warning: in case of rapture this vehicle will be unmanned” bumper sticker.

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  34. I drive an 09 Subaru Forester XT. I’m waiting for the warranty to expire before I start to tinker with the performance. I also have a 77 Datsun 280z, but it is a long term project. I have owned the Datsun for 20 years now. I have to wait until some of my children are grown and move out of the house before I really get working on it. I want to put a V8 motor and six speed manual transmission in it. My wife drives a Honda Odyssey. We have five kids.

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  35. Robert, the very concept of bumper stickers is the worst. Self expression is gay. Now that should be a bumper sticker.

    Josh, nice to have another lesbian around here–do you also wear a black Eddie Bauer fleece and give your Goldendoodle rides in the Suby when doing worm boy returns for your wife? But mine just sold our Odyssey for a Sienna. Boo, hiss.

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  37. “mine just sold our Odyssey for a Sienna.” — wow, a real Proverbs 30-something woman! We know who wears the skinny jeans in Casa de Zrim.

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  38. Zrim, I have been known to wear polyester leisure suits, but my wife has been training me well over the years. Now I am a khaki and polo shirt kind of guy. Sorry to hear about the Odyssey. My wife’s only complaint is lack of power now that she has driven the Subaru.

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  39. Robert, I wonder if it would hold up in court if one day you just took their car – “Judge, the car was clearly unmanned, so I assumed the rapture happened.”

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  40. Stuart – last comment at you (not Robert, although Robert your wit is equally entertaining)

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  42. Darryl, needs to start running male medical center ads on his site, he’s got a bevy of sb customers here. Sheesh.

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  43. The coexist, Robert, is wiccan, I believe.

    Zrim, you got it, on bumper stickers. Me, I’m afraid of anyone with any distinguishing feature on their car. I hear it means they see their car as an extension of themselves.

    Sorry folks (emoticon).

    PS 2004 white corrolla has plenty of trunk space for my clubs and an extra set, just FYI…

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  44. The absolute worst, most inflammatory bumper sticker I can ever recall was the one I saw on cars around the Fort Wayne area in the early ’80s that said, “God made Notre Dame #1”

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  45. C-dubs, and now she’s selling the casa. She’s the boomer, I’m the sticker.

    Josh, careful, complaining about a lack of power can be a sign of latent theonomy. Hi, Doug.

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  46. Zrim, the Honda will have to wait until I tune my Subaru. I am looking to add 120 – 140 more hp to the Subaru.

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  48. The only bumper sticker I ever put on one of my vehicles read “Don’t believe the lies, Belgium doesn’t exist”.

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  49. I used to have a Jesus fish on the back of my car when I was about 19, but removed it. Actually, the car was Jed’s (a 1967 Mercedes Benz 280S) and I totaled it by taking it on a motocross track. Funny story (but sad end to a beautiful car)… Jed still resents me to this day for it. Fortunately he was in Chicago when it happened

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  50. Josh, millions of waffles beg to differ with your bumper sticker. And what about all those abbey ales? Don’t tell me they were actually brewed by German immigrants in Wisconsin or somewhere.

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