This pattern looks like the semantic "missing link" between the two meanings of jerk: the fast driver is as stupid as the slow one, but in an especially annoying/harmful way.

After this specialization, from general stupidity to obnoxious and irritating stupidity, it is a small shift to pure obnoxiousness, implying moral but not intellectual inferiority.

But why, of many suitable words, "jerk" was the one who made this transition? Who is responsible?