Leaside likes Honda the Best

They say the type of car you drive says a lot about your personality.

Read on to see what types of cars Leasiders are driving, and then draw your own conclusions.

The British marketing research agency, YouGov, in the course of its consulting work, has gathered a database of information over the years profiling the attitudes and behaviours of 200,000 Americans. It uses this database to help advertisers and brand managers make better decisions for reaching their target audience.

YouGov took this information and attempted to figure out what the personalities of the drivers of specific cars said about the brands themselves.

It found that BMW drivers believe they are more knowledgeable than other people; Ford drivers felt they were friendlier; Mercedes-Benz’s drivers thought of themselves as more adventurous than drivers of other car brands; and General Motors drivers view themselves as more mechanically intelligent than other drivers.

Those are but a few of the observations made by YouGov, who came to the overall conclusion that the demographics and culture of a car brand are heavily influenced by advertising and product placement.

In 2013, University of California at Berkeley researcher Paul Piff, an assistant professor at the university’s Institute of Personality and Social Research, conducted a study of driver behaviour in two different scenarios: The first observed the behaviour of 152 drivers at a crosswalk and the second observed the behaviour of 274 cars at a four-way stop.

“You see this huge boost in a driver’s likelihood to commit infractions in more expensive cars,” Piff wrote in his California study. “One of the most significant trends was that fancy cars were less likely to stop.…BMW drivers were the worst.”

Whether it’s a sense of entitlement or some other misplaced rationale for breaking the law, it continues to happen all too frequently around the neighbourhood.

But enough about which car brands don’t abide by basic traffic rules; it’s got me to thinking about which car brands are most favoured in our lovely neighbourhood.

While BMW and Audi would both be good guesses, neither brand has a dealership in Leaside proper. That distinction goes to Mazda, Kia, Hyundai, and Mercedes-Benz. You would think those brands would have reasonably high representation simply as a matter of convenience.

So, in order to find out what’s what, I went into the neighbourhood carrying out a very unscientific survey to determine the car brands most coveted by Leasiders.

The rules were simple.

I walked from Bayview Ave. east along Parkhurst Blvd. until I reached Sutherland Dr. where I turned south walking along Sutherland until I reached Bessborough Dr., where I headed north to Millwood Rd. finishing on Millwood at Bayview Ave.

Only cars parked in a driveway were counted except for a small stretch on Sutherland where there are no driveways; in that situation, I counted the cars on the street (about five cars) and I only counted vehicles on the side of the street I was walking on.

On the day in question, I came upon 191 vehicles.

The number one car brand… Honda, with 13% of the total or 24 vehicles.

Coming a close second with 20 vehicles each were BMW and Toyota. Rounding out the top 10 in order of vehicles were Mercedes-Benz (15), Volkswagen (12), Ford (11), a tie among Mazda, Jeep, and Subaru (all with 10) and Acura at 8 vehicles.

The nearest Honda dealership? 5.1 kilometres away on the other side of the Don Valley Parkway; BMW and Toyota have dealerships slightly closer at 3.3 and 2.4 kilometres, respectively.

The two brands located farthest from Leaside? Subaru and Acura, which combined accounted for almost 10% of the 191 cars I encountered in my travels.

If there are any Subaru Canada or Acura Canada executives reading this, you might want to start working on a dealership in the Leaside Business Park. I’m sure your existing customers would really appreciate it. And who knows, you might even pick up some new customers along the way.

About Will Ashworth 51 Articles
Will Ashworth contributes to Leaside Life.