The Green Psycho

My car wants to kill you. Or if not you, somebody else. Or your dog. Or somebody else's dog . It's not picky.

You'll never hear it coming until it's too late. You'll be crossing the street at a corner, iPod ear buds in place, when faintly from behind you'll hear the crunch of tire on pavement. You'll whirl. And the last thing you'll see is a goofy chrome "T" hood ornament bearing down on you. Then, blackness.

But let me begin at the beginning:

I got a new car last summer. Just two months after blogging about the advantages of owning an old car, I bought a new one. It was time. Sue me.

I didn't buy just any car, either: I bought the ultimate Santa Cruz holier-than-thou green vehicle. The car that says, "I'm an enlightened being who cares about the planet, and I want everyone to know that." The car that gets you instant cred with Santa Cruz' yuppie-green elite, because they all have them, too. The car that you can't swing a cat on the West Side without hitting one. The only conspicuous environmental virtue that money can buy.

That's right. A Prius. A Toyota Prius hybrid.

Please understand. I did not intend to follow the crowd and become an environmental fashion victim. I could have bought other hybrids that look like normal cars, that don't "look like a hybrid." I almost got the Civic hybrid, which looks just like any other Civic. But the Prius roped me in with its Starship-Enterprise control interface, it's smooth electric-powered takeoff, its superior fuel economy, and the too-cool-for-words rear-view TV camera.

Of course I should have wondered why a Prius would actually need a rear view TV camera. And it does. More about that in a bit.

So no, I didn't just buy a Prius to be hip and green;. But I did buy it as insurance:

Since this country imports most of its petroleum from other countries which don't like us very much right now, I felt the need for a car that just sips fuel. Just in case other countries stop selling us all that oil. And the Prius has the potential to convert to a "plug hybrid" -- an almost purely-electric car -- down the line, when the warranty runs out. None of the other hybrids can do that.

So I had logical reasons for buying a Prius. But I also love the car for itself. It gets great gas mileage on city streets, and that's with two heavy people in the car and a lot of hill-climbing. It's fun to drive, roomy, and has mongo storage. I love ghosting along silently on pure electric power, which you can sometimes do for a mile or so when the battery's well-charged.

But there are a few, uh, problems. Just a few tiny, tiny, little matters. Nothing to worry about, really. Mere bagatelles. Uh:

THAT DAMNED THING HAS BLIND SPOTS SO BIG THAT GOD COULDN'T HEAL THEM!

These are blind spots that swallow pedestrians whole: Now you see the bicyclist. Now you don't. Now -- OH JEEEZ, BRAKE! BRAKE! BRAKE!

When Toyota engineers designed the Prius, they shaped the body for absolute minimum wind resistance, to aid fuel economy. And to do that, the engineers sacrificed a few small things like, oh... your field of vision.

The four roof pillars are huge and thick and obstructive, and the rear window is narrow and high. At 15 feet or more, a 180-pound semi-awake college student can completely hide behind the right-front roof pillar. I know, because I almost hit him. And the 14-year-old skateboarder. And a jogger or two.

Backing up is particularly bad. That's why Toyota added -- after panicky screams from Prius owners -- the rear-view TV camera. But it still doesn't give you a complete rear view. The car's dictionary-sized instruction manual clearly states, "Do not rely on the camera alone to see behind when in reverse gear."

So you look at the side mirrors, which show you some things, but not other things; then you check the camera feed in the dashboard video display, which doesn't show you everything either; and then you check the rear view mirror in case somebody's managed to sneak behind the car while you were checking the side mirrors and the camera.

Which they do, a lot. Santa Cruz is a college town; even if he realizes that you're backing up, your average 19-year-old male sophomore will still run across your car's path because "I can make it." Yeah, well, I'm all in favor of natural selection but let somebody else wipe the blood off their fenders, thank you.

Oh, and it gets better: the Prius' TV camera only operates when the car is in reverse gear. As long as the car is in reverse, an loud alarm beeps in your ear to "warn" you. It is the most obnoxious and distracting sound that I have ever heard a car intentionally make.

So there you are sitting still in reverse so you can use the rear-view TV camera, trying to make sure nobody's behind the car, trying to concentrate, and the car is screaming in your ear, "Hurry up! Don't worry! Release the brake! I WANT TO KILL!"

I have adapted: once I shift into reverse, I spend as much as ten seconds checking and rechecking the video display and mirrors, and even twisting completely backward in my seat for a final direct-eyeball confirmation. I ignore than infernal beeping. Then finally I release the brake. And pray.

Because if the blind spots weren't bad enough, and the college-town pedestrians weren't careless enough, the Prius has one more weapon in its arsenal:

Silence.

After I had the car for a week or two, pedestrians started to become more stupid. They'd step right into the car's path without looking. Well, okay, they always do that in Santa Cruz, but -- more often.

I found myself stopping short at intersections a lot. I'd stop, check the crosswalk, release the brake -- and then some kid with a cell phone would step off the curb in front of me.

I finally figured it out: they can't hear the car.

Even the most oblivious pedestrian will register the sound of an approaching engine on some level. But the Prius uses its silent electric drive half the time. It doesn't even idle at intersections; at a full stop, the gas engine automatically turns off to save fuel.

So the Prius cuts no breaks to the careless pedestrian. You can't hear it coming, and the driver can't see you well enough to cut you all the slack you're used to. Professor Charles Darwin, please report to the white courtesy telephone.

That's the evil genius of the Prius. The car is so fun, so technologically impressive, and so environmentally friendly, that nobody wants to believe that it lusts for the blood of pedestrians.

The Toyota Prius is the Ted Bundy of automobiles: so polite, so friendly -- but with a metaphorical ski mask and crowbar in the trunk.

Would I buy one again?

God help me, yes. It's a great car; and because I know the problems, I drive it carefully. And maybe you haven't heard of many accidents because most Prius owners around here are, like me, in their 40s, 50s, or older. Level-headed. Cautious. We speak about the problems quietly, among ourselves; we don't air our dirty laundry in public.

But I'm seeing more and more teenagers in these cars; well-heeled parents are buying them for their little numkins at the University, even at some of the local high schools. Do you think a teenager is going to spend ten seconds checking the mirrors before he slams his Prius into reverse?

The Prius might be a force for good in the world -- fewer greenhouse gases, less dependence on petroleum. The damn thing's even fully recyclable.

Just remember: it wants you. And not in a good way.