I was on my way to visit a friend who lives 40 miles away on the opposite side of the city from me last night. It is an easy drive as it is x-way the whole way & the speed limit is 65 mph.

As it was 5:00 rush hour traffic, the traffic volume was fairly heavy in all lanes. As I got nearer to his exit, the right lane traffic became very slow & ridiculously backed up & my speed dropped to around 42 mph (before that, traffic had been cruising along at right around the speed limit).

I managed to get a kind person to let me over into the middle lane & after reaching the head of the 3/4 mile slowdown in the right lane I had to roll my eyes when I saw what was causing the major traffic tie up (which had people very exasperated, I could tell from the horn blowing & hand gestures being made). I figured it was probably a 90 year old driver causing the tie up, but that wasn't the case. At the head of that backed up line in rush hour traffic line was a revolting green FEH absolutely covered with tree hugger & Hybrid stickers & a middle age woman driving it.

Now don't get me wrong, I have completely changed my style of driving in the years I have been driving an FEH (this is my 2nd one). I am not the guy flying by at 85 mph in the passing lane anymore (that WAS me for years), but I'll be ****ed if I am going to hold up traffic & cause a major traffic snafu just to save a couple mpg & cause all the drivers around me to despise anyone driving a Hybrid. In the area we where in, there are multiple less traveled roads this woman could have taken (some of them follow along RIGHT NEXT to the x-way) instead of the x-way & not bothered anybody in the least with her driving style.

~John

 

I don't think people hate hybrids, I think they hate some hybrid drivers...sometimes with good reason.

 

True, but the problem is the drivers like that give people the impression that Hybrid's are so underpowered that they have trouble keeping up with the normal flow of traffic.........

~John

 

Valid point.

 

Since getting my FEH, I've come to the conclusion that all of the people rushing to their destination, flipping me the bird and screaming at me, just don't enjoy driving their vehicles as much as we do. And I really do enjoy driving the FEH around.

 

I love driving mine too, I told my Wife that just the other day. I have had a lot of really cool vehicles over the years & I realized I enjoy the FEH as much as any vehicle I have ever owned.

I do drive differently than I used to, & use a lot of the tricks posted on this site to improve my mpg.

That being said, I have no problem whatever keeping up with normal traffic flow patterns & nobody feels the need to flip me the bird for my driving style........

~John

 

I have never cared for turning my vehicle into a billboard.

For one thing, it looks trashy when done like the FEH mentioned.

It's not realistic to driver's attention span to read more than 2-3.

The stickers that stick out unfortunately are the most hycritical ones such as an Esclade with "Save Lake Tahoe".

I don't poke around in the passing lane or draft inches off a big rig....and I discourage others from doing so for among other reasons the bad PR

The bad hybrid poster boys might be one in 20, but sadly, many will stereotype ALL do that.