Prius - Invisible to truck drivers

i hear you. my wife and i were at a crosswalk the other day with a pick up truck approaching. not only did he not stop, he gunned it and rolled coal, leaving us to breathe his diesel fumes. probably didn'tt like the fact that we were walking, and actually trying to cross 'his street.' this is the 'other species' we have to try and coexist with.

 

we do the exact same thing. i would rather wait for traffic, if there's a possibility of a break, rather than make everyone stop and start again. we'll even continue on the sidewalk, and cross at a not crosswalk.

 

Now I see why your Prius is not being noticed.

 

Sorry.

 

I think its overall getting worse = to be seen on the road.

too may people in a mad rush these days. but the color of the car must play a role.

my guess is bright colors would be best. even so i have an older dark grey volvo in seattle and i was never hit to date.

now i have a silver prius here in florida and that might not be the best color either = blends in with the road kinda.

red and white for a prius should be good.

 

While it certainly sounds like the OP has had a string of bad luck as far as his Prius being hit, I'm going to vote that The Prius isn't any less visible to people than any other vehicle of it's size.

I mean, you can't really have it both ways can you?

On one hand, some Prius owners like to cite "Prius Rage" and being NOTICED for driving a Prius, in many negative ways.
Now we also want to say the Prius is more invisible on the road?

I have to attribute most of it to bad luck, and imagination.

I had a 90's forest green metallic vehicle that I liked to imagine people simply did not notice. It seemed to me people would turn in front of it, or if a pedestrian walk out in front of. I use to think it was because of it's "Piece of Nature" like color.

But in all honesty? I can't really say it wasn't all simply my imagination.

I do think we are now living in a time where people have learned to focus inwardly or specifically on the environment of handheld minutia. Too many cell phones, tablets, gadgets and informational screens, sometimes distracting us from the REAL world around us.

When I was a little kid, I use to like to go for a ride in the "automobile" because I liked looking out of the window at the world around me.
Today the back-seat of a vehicle is just another access point to a screen. A rolling living room.
Seems about the only thing that likes riding in a vehicle and looking out a window- is your dog.

So I'm going with...this is an age of distraction, but The Prius...not any more invisible than anything else.

 

One of my worst near-hits was while driving my spouse's fire engine red Integra, with headlights on. The SUV driver gabbing on her cell phone never saw me before turning into my path, forcing evasive action.

As Electric Me says, the Prius is not any more invisible than others. This is just a growing Age of Distraction.

 

I believe research does show color to have some influence. My Silver is probably the worst color choice for my climate zone, so the voluntary DRLs are turned on full time.

But the proliferating distractions out there are defeating many attempts to be visible.

 

Regardless of color, I can say with certainty that I experience far more people pulling out in front of me or cutting me off when I'm driving our white Prius or our black Prius than I do when I'm driving my Gray Durango 4x4. Especially if they are driving a truck or van. It's as if they subconsciously think "meh, that little Prius can't hurt me."
I also drove a red Camry for a couple years as a work car and experienced those same behaviors.


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My vote would be for International Orange, or a Day Glo fluorescent green like some bicyclists and motorcyclists are wearing nowadays . Those colors really seem to work in Daylight, dawn, and dusk situations.

FWIW, I'm also considering changing the front Toyota emblem to be a third LED driving light. I have replaced the parking lights with brighter LEDs and always drive with DRL and parking lights in front, taillights in back.

 

I wonder if, with the taillights on in daylight, the driver behind you picks up that you have your brake lights on as fast as if there were more contrast. I know sometimes just from the sun shining on some taillights, I have a hard time figuring out if the car in front is braking or not.

I too added DRLs. Reminds me I need to report that to my insurance company to save maybe $2 a year. At that rate it will be centuries before they pay for themselves.

 

That's creative!
I was thinking more prosaically about an RF jammer tuned for the cell phone frequencies that would affect just the immediate area, but rumor has it that such jammers might be of questionable legality. Sigh.

 

I agree. Can those reporting on this problem do us a favor and also please report the color of their cars? I think grey on Prius is the culprit.

I have blizzard white and have never experienced this (yet). In fact at least 3 times while at red light or slowly doing a right turn I've been stopped by pedestrian to compliment my car. Once a high school kid stopped me and knocked at my window so i can lower it, only to tell me his parents were planning to buy the same color Prius (lol). Lots of people also notice and compliment the car while I'm parked, picking up passengers, or chatting with friends. So no, I definitely don't think I'm invisible in this car.

 

I'm on my second Prius, and since driving one, I've noticed a much bigger problem with being cut off in traffic or people plowing past me on the right when I'm waiting for the car in front of me to move over. I'm usually running late so MPG isn't my first priority when I'm just trying to get somewhere quickly but safely by not staring at a screen. Enough people have told me (without knowing that I drive one) that they HATE getting behind Prius drivers "because they're so slow, always trying to get the best MPG" so my belief is that the general consensus is "see a Prius, cut it off before it can get ahead of you". As for being invisible, I was hit while driving my light blue '06 turning left into my street by a Ford F150 turning left out of the same street, and his excuse was that he did not see me. His license plate was a little bent, my car had $8000 in damages. (first post, hope I didn't offend anyone!)

 

As stated earlier, I experience this behavior in my Blizzard Pearl and Black Prii as well as past experience in a red Camry.
Perhaps it has something to do with my living in W KY where hillbillies consider the height of a 4x4 and the amount of fuel wasted to be directly proportional to one's manhood? (Not that I'm anti truck...I own a V8 4x4 SUV myself)
And I know it's not due to me being a "slow Prius driver" because my friends family and coworkers sometimes comment that I drive too fast.

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Are we calling assholes in pickups "trucks", or do we mean real trucks.

(Pickups without assholes have no trouble with my Prius)

 

Nobody in this part of the country says "pickup" They're all universally referred to as "trucks" Even SUVs. Kind of like all soft drinks are "coke" here too, LOL. Seriously. The word Coke is used like this:
"Do you want a Coke?"
----"Sure"
"What kind do you want? Coke, Sprite, etc..."


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