I've been thinking about this for a while since I got my Prius a couple of months ago and was wondering how other owners feel about the respect, or lack of, that other road users seem to show me, compared to when I was driving my previous car. People just seem to pull out in front of me even when I am pretty close as if they don't want to be behind me, something that I have not really had a problem with before. I have not changed my driving style or speed in any way and yet the change in attitude by others seems pretty marked. I have to say here, that I am not a boy racer, but on the other hand, neither am I a 'Sunday driver'. I try to drive around the speed limit, sometimes a little over, but usually at, and I am very aware of not holding people back when pulling off, so I don't really see that it is the way I drive that is the cause if this, but it must be others' perception of the car and me as a person who drives a Prius.

I try not to let this bother me too much, but I have to admit that it can get very tiresome sometimes and it is very tempting to show these people exactly what speed and power the Prius is actually capable of. I know that there is very little I can do to change others view of the Prius or how they're driven but I personally have not actually noticed ever being 'held up' by a slow-moving Prius, before or after changing my car.

Am I being paranoid, or have others had these kinds of issues as well?

Possibly. I can't say that I have noticed anyone doing it to me, but I am only in my second month of ownership. I don't really see how you can judge what is in the mind of another driver. There are all kinds of reasons why drivers do what they do.

This morning I picked up a small Peugeot that slotted in behind me as I went round a roundabout in a 30 m.p.h. section. He was up my tailpipe all the way through the 30 and the 20 and then the 40 m.p.h. that followed. I kept saying to myself, this guy is impatient and is frustrated because I am driving at the limit and he wants to go faster. He will overtake as soon as he gets a chance. However, when we got to a 60 section where the road was clear and I accelerated away quite sedately and kept left to let him get by, he made no effort and just fell back gently into the distance behind me.

When we came to the next 40 m.p.h. section and I slowed to the limit, he caught me once more and again positioned himself less than a car length behind me. I concluded that he didn't particularly want to drive quickly, but just took no notice of speed limits and was too thick to realise that driving too close is dangerous.

You can never know what is in someone elses mind, but it strikes me as pretty unlikely that there is a significant group of drivers saying to themselves "Look out for the Toyota Prius and don't get behind one . . . .

The first time I noticed different reactions from drivers to different vehicles was when I drove a Ford Ka people would cut me up and have no respect for me at all. The car I bought after this was a 2 seater roadster (Fiat Barchetta) people would move out of the way on a motorway if I was driving behind them and assume I wanted to "power past" in my sports car (which was not the case). I have read that BMW drivers feel they are never let out of side turnings and people assume they want to drive at speeds exceeding the legal limits.

One thing that I always look out for is anyone driving with a hat on (unless it is a convertible with the roof down), I don't know why but in a majority of cases a driver wearing a hat seems to be less competent than those with naked heads.

I haven't noticed any difference since starting to drive my Prius just over a month ago. I'm not convinced the car is well known enough to have much of a 'reputation' (in my area at least) but I'm sure drivers sometimes make judgements based on the kind of car (or vehicle) they see in front of them, so perhaps you're not being paranoid elliotsdad!
IMO courtesy has a lot to do with the nature of the road and the time of day (or day of the week). On some of the roads I use each day people are happy to merge/let each other in when the traffic is heavy, on others its a case of frantic lane changing and a mad dash to the next roundabout for the sake of moving one car up the queue. Many of the same drivers must be involved in both cases.


Quite right too - away from the heat of the moment we all know that getting annoyed will make things worse. I'm certainly guilty of getting wound up sometimes but I hope I'm mellowing with age. In this respect the car certainly helps: focusing on fuel economy with techniques like smooth driving and anticipating traffic means I'm less likely to distract myself by worrying about the manners/antics of other road users. I fear a bit of the Prius smugness is taking root but floating around in a cloud of smug is probably better for Britain's roads than trying to show people what the car is capable of

P.S. I don't wear a hat (yet)
P.P.S. And it's nice to have the PWR button there, just in case

I don't think I've noticed any difference because of the car, but I drive differently now and I think that annoys some motorists - for example I really like coasting to a stop. I've even had a Prius tall-gate me in a 30 mph zone but then what did I expect as I was only doing 30 mph...

A lot of folk do not realise that prius is a hybrid vehicle. I get weird glances at times coasting to a stop etc. You have to be careful reversing as folk cannot hear you. The camera is a great aid it prevented me from knocking over a youngster whose mother had let it run lose in the car park.
Other road users are of varying character but boy racers and the drivers that drive up to your boot in 30 MPH limits plus foreign lorry drivers are my main moans. I do not think it is worse for Prius drivers I got similar treatment from other drivers when driving other makes of car.

Well, i for one have noticed an adverse reaction from other drivers since changing to a Prius as my main car. I must caveat that statement with "a determined minority". Our other car, a Saab 9-3, driven the same way does not elicit the same reaction. 95% of the time, there seems to be no adverse reaction, but i have been tailgated a lot more in the Prius on all types of roads than i ever have in the Saab. However, i just ignore them. I do stick to speed limits too. Some people think the law doesnt apply to them, i dont know why.

How many Prius owners compensate for the +10% over read of the speedo?

Can't answer that... but i do

Heck, I coast too and I've a diesel Yaris!

I must admit, I don't like being behind cars with large asses like the Prius because I can't see past them too well, and I've been cut up and tailgated by lots of Prius users too, so I guess it's more a decline in average road etiquette more than anything else.

Worst drivers tend to be Golf and Audi drivers for me. Even BMW people seemed to have calmed down a bit compared to them; I had a shock when one of them let me out a few days back!!

Its been known....but then I used to do that with previous cars too, ever since I got my 1st Sat Nav I think.

That's not unique to the Prius though?

Yes, that's an important point. I have come across a survey of US cars which showed typical ranges for different manufacturers (they did differ), but not an equivalent for us (I believe they have different accuracy rules in the US).
If all cars are out by about the same amount, it shouldn't make too much difference. Even if you're driving by the speed registered by your sat nav (if you have one) the car's own speedo would remind you of the speed other drivers might think they are doing.
Maybe white vans have much more accurate speedos, which could explain the impatience of their drivers

The amended Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 are what stipulate speedometer accuracy. Simplified, they require that a speedo must never an indicated speed less than actual speed. For actual speeds between 25 mph and 70 mph the indicated speed must not exceed 110% of the actual speed, plus 6.25 mph.

Given that factors such as tyre wear etc have an effect on the indicated speed, most manufacturers err on the side of caution with speeometers that read in the range +5 - + 10%

I don't think it is unique either, although I suspect that the Prius speedo over-reads closer to the upper tolerance of 10% plus a constant than my previous car. It's not based on a scientifically rigourous test, just brought along my portable GPS once, and I thought mmmm I think the speedo is reading a little higher than I remember it doing on my Honda. Of course my Honda was five years older, it had a conventional looking analogue dial (possibly parallax errors in reading the needle, etc), so I am not exactly comparing like for like.

What I think is disappointing, is that I believe the laws were originally written when speedometers were entirely mechanical with magnets and springs, the law had a tolerance that allowed the speedo to over-read by over 10% because it would have been too expensive to build them with a higher accuracy. In modern cars, an electronic speedo could be a lot more accurate (for example compare with a US Gen 2), but for whatever reason it seems to me that there has either been EU/UK encouragement or interpretation by the manufacturer that the speedo must be made to over-read as close as possible to that upper limit.

You should try driving a Skoda!