As someone who endure up to two hours in traffic a day trying to snake my way through Phoenix streets in my small and economical (but rather zippy) Saturn station wagon amidst the giant trucks and SUVs that are slogging along depleting our planet of fossil fuel, I get quite a chance to play scientist.

It's this huge sociological experiment on every drive where I consciously correlate driving behavior to not only the size and type of the vehicle but often to the type of individual that's driving. One would think it would be a difficult thing to gauge but quite often the biggest jerks on the road proudly portray their personality and often their political affiliation through the bling they paste all over their road rockets.

From my findings, there seems to be a direct correlation between the following items and rude, antisocial, or oblivious driving behavior:

1. Large trucks and SUV's. The darker the color, the worse the driver.

2. People with Marine stickers on their back windows. It should be noted that you should not flip off these people. Any other military sticker or a veteran's license plate pretty much assures subpar or rude driving although not to the degree of the Marines.

3. People with too many ribbons in support of whatever group happens to be top on their list (the troops, breast cancer survivors, midget bowlers, etc). I can only surmise that what you'd think would be a positive trait (caring about others) is instead this attempt to appear to be caring about others. ("Look at me. I have a heart of gold"). This also goes for folks that need to put some message on the back of their vehicle in dedication to some person that died like any of the rest of us care about them or even know them.

4. People with political support stickers for primarily Republican candidates. There are exceptions of course but pretty much the more despicable the politicians, (and it seems to correlate to public favorability ratings ie: Bush/Cheney) the ruder the driver.

5. People needing to throw their religion or their choice of church in your face. A fish symbol on the back of a vehicle almost guarantees that the person inside is going to do unexpected things and I end up watching them like a hawk. That attitude has kept me out of numerous accidents.

6. Other red flags - gun racks, Confederate flags, "My child is an honor student at Our Mother of Perpetual Motion Academy" stickers, Oakland Raiders football posters.

There are numerous other traits but most are subtle. After awhile you get a feel for the vehicles you want to watch like a hawk and often it's nothing you can put your finger on. In the last week I've avoided two sure accidents because of my observational skills and quick reflexes. Yesterday's incident scared the hell out of me. I was driving on I-17 back to the Phoenix valley at around 65 mph in sparse traffic and passed an SUV that decided to suddenly change lanes as I was abreast of their vehicle. They could have been no more than an inch away when I swerved away and nearly ran off the shoulder. Somehow I kept it in control. Had the car not been an SUV, I wouldn't have been watching it as closely out of the corner of my eye and I'm certain our car would've been rolled off the road.

From my experiences on the road I believe I've assembled a pretty good idea of society in general and it can be pretty depressing if that's your only input. Only about 20 - 30% of drivers on the road really care about anyone else around them. The rest are in their own little world and their needs are going to come first. If they're in a hurry, they'll cut you off. If they're not in a hurry, nobody else should be and they'll start off leisurely from a light in a construction zone despite the fact that there's two miles of backed up cars behind them.

Sorry for the rant but your post hit a chord especially since my brush with death yesterday.

Art