On the white van thing – Russell, I’m sorry, but the white van stereotype is more widely true and applicable than you think. I started cycle-commuting to work 15 months ago, and pretty quickly got fed up of abuse and poor treatment from drivers of all manner of vehicles, so I started counting. The verdict: half – HALF – of all unbranded work vans will either drive so badly I have to change my behaviour to avoid them, or they shout abuse or catcalls out of their window at me. That’s half, of all I encounter on my 20 minute commute. That’s appalling.

Thank you!

All that happens is that I panic and sometimes stall, delaying them even further. WHY DO YOU DO THIS, PEOPLE? WHY WOULD YOU TORMENT ME?

YES, THIS. The only times I have stalled is when someone has tried to crowd me, and I’ve taken up the clutch too quickly. The old car I had was so clutch-heavy and the gearbox so broken that it took real effort to move either, and you had to take it damn slow or it would stall. This meant a good 5 seconds per gear change. The moment I switched to Bertie, he of the new gearbox and shiny clutch, my gear changes became super-smooth.

My instructor gave me a lot of help on the clutch control actually, he dragged me out on a hill and made me practice keeping the car still – very fiddly, but after 2hrs of that there was a resounding improvement, I recommend it!

Thank you, I’m planning on it! Really keen to try rally driving, actually, it looks like a lot of fun.

I figured I’d step in at this point as the thread is threatening to spill into “what Viktoriya REALLY means is…”

I’m sure you’ve been in vans driven by good drivers, Russell, but I’m afraid that my experience has been the oppposite. I had driving lessons every week in Croydon and surrounding South West London, and all exaggeration aside I was nearly killed twice by van and lorry drivers. True, other drivers were aggressive and unpleasant as well, but it was only the van and lorry drivers that could actually have resulted in a nasty accident if I didn’t take evasive action. Short of giving me the exciting opportunity to use “evasive action” in a sentence, they didn’t actually gain anything from the encounters: they didn’t get anywhere quicker, and they didn’t benefit in any way from putting me in quite real danger. The one incident I didn’t mention was with an articulated lorry that decided to ignore the proper way to enter a roundabout, and simply enter when he pleased, swinging several tons of lorry around to nearly slap into the side of my tiny little car. My instructor actually took down his license-plate number to report him for dangerous driving.

To clarify Van Man: if it had been anyone other than a white twenty-something male with a shaved head, tattoos and loud music blaring out of his windows as he bore down on my little car at a million miles per hour, I may not have used the stereotype. But in this instance, it WAS the stereotype, come to life. I therefore feel my use of it was perfectly valid.

Like I said, I did do a bit of thinking before deciding to post. I don’t honestly think Viktoriya is single-handedly responsible for the oppression of men with ven everywhere or anything daft like that, but the use of an easy stereotype like “van drivers are maniacs”, particularly when I’ve been in vans with drivers who weren’t maniacs many times, just sort of took me out of the post for a moment. Honestly I hate cars and driving so I do sort of read these posts with a smile and a nod and move on most of the time, but this time I wondered if there was perhaps a wider topic for discussion. I wasn’t massively offended and outraged, and I don’t think anyone would be; nor do I mean to disparage the series or its author since I’m sure for those who are into driving it’s very interesting. It just raised a question for me. I hope that’s okay.

I wouldn’t say perpetuating stereotypes in itself is always to be condemned. Otherwise we’d all be condemning Spaced, Black Books, Peanuts and Gerald Scarfe. Or perhaps the ultimate Van Man show, Only Fools and Horses. It can be lazy humour, or it can provide an immediacy of humour (caricatures, satire etc). A good example might be Privilege Denying Dude, which I found refreshing in its “I see your stereotype of me and raise you your own predictability” stance. Some people found it made them uncomfortable; a lot of people found the opportunity for biting pushback in what is assuredly not a level playing field comforting.

On a detailed level, White Van Man jokes can have elements of gender and particularly class stereotypes, yes. There are some posts on class, humour and pop culture hopefully upcoming on here in the near future, what with one thing and another, but those are still being drafted at the mo.

I think correctly identifying stereotype use in itself isn’t accomplishing a great deal in my view beyond identifying the humour toolbox. I think a more pertinent question is “is this a damaging stereotype pushing the oppression of male van drivers the world over as it is used in this post?” How is it being used? Who is using it? Some stereotype humour is so awful we can’t quite apply this to it so much (minstrel shows, say!) but I’m profoundly not convinced this is one of those moments.

In which case, y’know, having had a van-based catcall only last week, I think I’m with Vik (whose descriptions of her own driving are hardly beyond some self-deprecating humour, too; the post is really not an assault on men). And being honest? When I edited this, I laughed. Like many things on here it’s a mileage-may-vary, but I think Petrolhead’s aim is to reach a lot of people (and specifically women drivers), and one way to do that is to mention some of the anecdotal stuff women stereotypically do encounter on the road.

If this were a Gamer Diary post about someone having the stereotypically horrendous oft-blogged fat-ugly-slutty female gamer experience, and a load of male gamers showed up going “we’re not like that!” I’d just say “Good, hurrah!” But the post, raising awareness of a set of attitudes from which those types can very often come, would very likely still stand.

But still! Congrats on passing the test! You need to try some track driving now…

Congrats on passing your test!