This is a crazy question I know, but have people ever critisized you by the car you drive? (for example too old, too crappy or too small)

Is your question referring to what other people think of our vehicles? Or is it referring to what people think of us for what we drive?

What people think of our cars. Like if person 1 saw person 2 driving a banged up 1990 Camry and person 1 says "You suck. Your car is crap. You're a loser."

First of all, I don’t pay people like that any attention. People who judge others by what kind of home they live in, what they drive or how much money they have are (in my mind) the lowest life forms on this planet.

As for me, I have never really had anyone confront me about what vehicles I have driven. Except for my closest neighbor.

Neptune I believe you have some nice experience with your neighbour and his GL Merc...

All I can say is if you live in a town or suburb (as opposed to living deep in the countryside) and drive an SUV then you should expect some criticism. Most urban-dwellers have absolutely no need to drive any kind of SUV (crossovers still count as SUVs in my book) and those people deserve all the criticism they get.

Yes, that’s why I said ...

You can't judge someone based on how money they have, it's how they make their money that matters, some people simply make too money for what they do (celebrities, professional athletes, certain kinds of lawyers). You can't hate someone just because they have more money than you, but when people spend their money in rather tasteless ways that does say something about them. Some people who get rich end up living in gaudy McMansions, some of those houses are very tacky and make the owner look rather self-important. So you can judge people a little bit by on how they spend their money, especially when there are so many poor people in the world.

The lowest life forms on this planet are people who will do anything to make lots of money, like stealing and drug dealing.

I've never seen anyone heckle someone because they're driving an old banger. Does this happen in America?

Ahhh, yes you can too. I was referring to someone "looking down" or as MBSL65fan said "criticizing" on others because they didn’t have a lot of money, didn’t drive nice cars or didn’t live in a well to do home.

No, I meant you SHOULDN'T judge someone on how much money they have.

When people say "can't" sometimes it means like it's not right to do something, eg. "You can't beat a child because they accidentally broke something".

Yes it does, it happens more within the teenage/young adult crowd, though adults are still prone to act in this manner as well. Such awful actions toward others don’t happen a lot, but they do occur.

All I can say is I've never seen strangers or other drivers shout insults at people for driving worn out cars. I could imagine it happening if the driver of the worn-out car is holding everyone up, but English drivers tend to show their contempt of slow drivers by speedily overtaking them. Leaning out the window and yelling at them sounds like something an American (no offence) in a city like New York is more likely to do. Although I'm not saying it wouldn't happen in England, there are probably London cabbies and van drivers who do that.

What I'm trying to say is people are more likely at driver for the way they are driving, not for how worthless their car is. Although I've seen driver yell at cyclists (it's happened to me before), and I've seen cyclists swear at car drivers.

If a car is so clapped out it can't keep up with the speed limit and is causing an obstruction and leaking smoke and such then it shouldn't be on the road in that state.

By the way Neptune, your neighbour really was a dickhead for saying "My Mercedes is better than your Ford." If it was a light-hearted joke between two friends that might have been different, but he's not your friend is he?

MBSL65fan, are you asking this question because it's happened to you?

We are not what I would call friends no. Ironically I heard through the neighborhood gossip that they may be getting rid of their Mercedes. Why? I have no clue, but they haven’t had it but just a few months. So that doesn’t make much sense. I bet it doesn’t even have 10,000 miles on it yet. They mainly drive their other car

Maybe he can't really afford it.

Not seriously. It happened once when I used to go to a catholic school however, where parents drive Mercedes, BMWs, Lexus' etc. We didn't have a fancy car like they did, but that guy ended up held back . Right now I go to a public high school (won't give many details), and some students have Chevy Duramax trucks, W140 Mercedes, Jeeps etc. There are some kids that have cars that they don't really need at that age. I have been criticized about my wealth once, but I just said, "Do you expect me to wear a tuxedo to school everyday?" Now if they don't have a newer, nicer car, they'll have one of those annoying stereo systems in it and will have that crappy rap stuff on the radio. I've even seen some kids do burnouts when exiting the parking lot which I hated. Of course I'd like to have a nice car like them, but I don't need one. I don't like trucks, but they're good to have for hauling my recyclables in the back.

Or it was a lease?

I totally agree, a high school student having a W140 Mercedes S-Class is ridiculous, it used to be one of the world's top luxury cars, far too good for a teenager's first car. Am I right that it goes without saying their parents bought them these cars, no normal teenager could earn the money to buy and run a big Merc.

It seems like insurance in America is too unrestrictive (I think even now at 23 I'd struggle to get insured on a Merc S-Class unless it was an S280 or something), most teenagers shouldn't be allowed to have big cars (when they crash they'll cause more damage). In Britain, just about every teenage driver has to start off small (and usually cheap) with little hatchbacks with engines of 1.6 litres and under.