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Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

  Would you drive differently if
  your real name was spray
  painted across your trunk lid?

Here in the UK, many tradespeople drive white vans emblazoned with the contact details for their business (there are also many unmarked white vans on the roads).

White Van Man's reputation for considerate driving is, to be charitable, not above average.

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Same here in the Northeast US. People driving work vehicles seem to be in a huge hurry to get to/from the job. It's especially scary as a pedestrian/cyclist because they're usually very large and fairly old vehicles.

My general experience as pedestrian is that while commercial vehicle drivers speed, they seem focused and give a wide berth when passing, whereas regular drivers often explore their sociopathic tendencies when passing.

To be fair much of that reputation comes from back in the day before most tradesman had logos on their vans. Back in the 90's almost every tradesman I knew drove a plain white Ford Transit van.

Source: Grew up in Essex and most of my neighbors were white van men.

Sounds like an opportunity for someone to just be nice to fellow drivers and gain business.

I just engaged a local class company who’s Yelp reviews were atrocious. The reason was, 3 of the 4 were reviews of the guy’s driving, not his skills at changing a windshield. I went to FB, and saw reviews with pics of work and overwhelmingly positive scores. Gave him my business. Though, I did think about it a bit before hand. Also thought about Yelp’s relevance and the value of the very recent reviews that were all not for his work, but his driving.

So when he kills a kid on the way to the gig he does for you, you won't judge?

Well that escalated quickly. There's a world of wriggle room between driving like an asshole and murdering children.

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