Last summer it was black Audis. This season, late-model Range Rovers are the leading contender for the most annoying kind of car on South Fork roads. This is in my personal experience, of course.
Going back several years, I had noticed that nine out of 10 times I was tailgated or cut off, the offending car would be a black Audi. These were mostly powerful, low sedans, but a good number of crossovers and sport-utility vehicles were in the mix, too. What this highly unscientific survey said about their drivers, I did not know, but there was something going on.
Looking around the web, Audis were reported to have among the best safety records in the auto industry. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety put several models at the top of its list in preventing injuries and deaths among passengers, pedestrians, and even people in other vehicles.
Could awareness of this have contributed to overconfidence among Audi drivers? Perhaps, but then why would my experience suggest that black-painted ones were the biggest public menace? People in white Audis drive courteously; were drivers of black Audis more likely to be arses? And what would explain the shift to Range Rovers?
The first week of July is too early for my anecdotal observations to mean much of anything; even post Labor Day, they would be little better than gut feelings. What one considers bad driving is subjective anyway. One person's irritating Range Rover might be another's tricked-out G-Class Mercedes, dismissively called the Nazi box the other day by one of my friends.
As of this morning, having nearly been run into by a woman in a 2026 Range Rover Sport, I stand by my current assessment. I wonder what other people have noticed so far.