Britain's angriest drivers, apparently.

It's good news for the persecuted white van man as a recent poll by insurance website Gocompare.com has revealed BMW drivers to be the UK's angriest. Although the white van man still features highly on the list, he has been overtaken at some speed by BMW drivers. Over half of the 3000 drivers who took part in the poll said that they had suffered at the hands of a BMW driver with the most frightening of behaviour being tailgating (58%), drivers pulling out in front of people (40%) and speeding (39%). And BMW drivers find that they are not the sole German manufacturer in the top 10, Audi, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz drivers are considered to be fiery tempered when they get behind the wheel.

See where you fall among the top 10 angriest drivers -

1.      BMW

2.      White van

3.      Audi

4.      Ford

5.      Land Rover

6.      Lorry

7.      Vauxhall

8.      Range Rover

9.      Volkswagen

10.    Mercedes-Benz

What rattles me about these kind of press releases (you want to guess who released the info quoted above? Huh?) is that it’s just rubbish research.  It’s nothing about the driving ability or “anger” of BMW drivers but it’s all about the social attitudes towards BMW drivers.  You take a straw poll of a bunch of people “which drivers are worst/angriest/most aggressive” and even worse give them a list to pick from and I bet that people would pick BMW and white van even if some bizarre act of parliament had banned all BMWs and white vans from the roads a year previously.  It’s just ingrained to believe all BMW drivers are...  because we like to stereotype people.  The BMW sticks in the mind more when it happens “Oh, typical BMW driver” but the 10 times you were cut up or tailgated by a Honda, Toyota, Fiat, VW, Skoda etc. does not really register.  You will note when ever these “worst driver” polls are conducted you will find “premium” brand cars make up most of the list.  That should tell you something.

If you want to know who Britain’s worst drivers are by brand of car they drive then ask the Association of British Insurers.  They keep records and stats on how many of what type of car get involved in accidents.  It’s how they work out “risk” which then goes into the grouping system which calculates insurance premiums.