If you drive an expensive car you’re probably a jerk, scientists say

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.
Tesla and regulators need to do more to prevent Autopilot deaths, safety agency says
Tesla and regulators need to do more to prevent Autopilot deaths, safety agency says
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.

If I ever take to driving my Rolls-Royce on a regular basis, I will retrofit it with peasant-sighting staffs on the fenders and a large cow-catcher, er brush guard, on the grill to push careless Hondas out of the way. Some of those James Bond Aston-Martin features might also be useful, especially those nifty disk-blade hubcaps. One idea I invented myself was a retractable catapult in the trunk, er boot, that would rise up and hurl fresh cow-pies at pickups, SUVs and other bumpkin-transport that dares to follow too closely. I don’t have a working model yet but I don’t foresee any insurmountable challenges. I even considered adapting airport runway lights to the headlight high beam position to vaporize inconsiderate road-louts who will not dim their own lights. That probably isn’t legal in Texas though.