Wow. They really ARE assholes.

Surely the least surprising revelation of all time: By the car companies own market research, SUV drivers are basically the worst people imaginable.

According to market research conducted by the country's leading automakers, Bradsher reports, SUV buyers tend to be "insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others."

He says, too, that SUV drivers generally don't care about anyone else's kids but their own, are very concerned with how other people see them rather than with what's practical, and they tend to want to control or have control over the people around them. David Bostwick, Chrysler's market research director, tells Bradsher, "If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single."

You know, it all makes sense now. Some stock broker finishes putting his kid in the back, belting it in, then gets in to the driver's seat two rows ahead so he can turn up whatever the clerk at HMV told him was the new hot thing, drink his Red Bull, and pretend that the condom didn't break on prom night. The child, meanwhile, has started calling the day-care staff "mommy."

Having to deal with these people on the streets of Toronto - while riding a bicycle, or walking on foot - has not endeared them to me. In case there was any ambiguity.