We Love Cars, but These 6 Things Really Grind Our Gears
There are a lot of things to get angry about in the car world, like gas prices and out-of-production parts and careless owners and stuck bolts. We try not to focus on those too much, but each of us still have those little things that just … ugh. They just get on our nerves. This week, we decided to get nit-picky. In the spirit of good humor, we’re sharing our automotive pet peeves: the various features, behaviors, and perspectives that get under our skin way more than perhaps they should. No—on second thought, we are exactly as irritated as we should be because double parkers are the actual worst.
Pet Peeve #1: Switch Blanks
This is petty, I know, but for me, it’s switch blanks. Those are the little rectangular inserts, usually black plastic, that cover up where a switch for a control—whatever, be it a turn-off for automatic start/stop; fog lights; traction control—was supposed to go, but this particular vehicle doesn’t have that feature.
A switch blank bothers me for two reasons: One, it messes up the symmetry of the dashboard or console to save the manufacturer the small expense of covering it up by design, instead of a plug, and two, it advertises the fact that no matter what you spent on the car, there was some feature or features you couldn’t afford. Your car is loaded? No, it isn’t, because you have an eyesore switch blank. And it isn’t just cheap vehicles—I tested a $223,000 car a few weeks ago that had a switch blank. OK, end of rant. — Steven Cole Smith
Pet Peeve #2: Stereotyping a Person Based on Their Car
Saying X car is for Y kind of people. Based on the stereotypes that run with my car history, I’ve been a hairdresser, a redneck, someone who doesn’t know how to use turn signals, a retiree, an NPR listener, and who knows what else. (Bonus points to anyone who can accurately guess the cars I’ve owned based on the above.) What someone thinks about others based on their car often says more about the observer than the observed. — Eddy Eckart
Pet Peeve #3: Doing a Burnout Leaving a Car Show
Not exactly a controversial opinion but … doing a burnout when leaving a car show. You don’t look cool. You’re not cool. Nobody above the age of 15 thinks you’re cool. You’re making the rest of us look bad. You’re making the venue nervous. You’re annoying the police and the neighbors.
These kinds of burnouts are dangerous, and not the sexy, glamorous kind of danger but the pointless, sad kind. Oh, and all those people lining the road recording your obnoxious exit? They’re there to get a clip of you crashing and looking like an idiot. — Andrew Newton
Pet Peeve #4: Unpredictable Drivers
I get annoyed by car owners who don’t want their car to be touched. It’s just a car, but since you keep calling it “your baby,” let’s face it, you were—happily—going to wash and wax it for a third time this week anyway, so calm down.
Pound for pound, however, it’s the people who don’t understand right of way that win top prize: Four-way stops are all too often an exercise in frustration, and heaven forbid the power goes out and the traffic lights start to blink.
Drivers who stop to let pedestrians cross mid-block, making wild assumptions that everyone else will stop, too. Be predictable, not polite.
Oh, and there’s a special place in hell for drivers who come to a stop on freeway on-ramps. — Stefan Lombard
Pet Peeve #5: Multi-Spot Parking Job
I considered a handful of answers for this question as I drove to the grocery store to run a quick errand, but the RIGHT answer smacked me in the face as I pulled into the parking lot.
Hands down, my biggest pet peeve is folks who intentionally park their cars to take up multiple parking spots. Oftentimes the perpetrators here are just regular pickups, SUVs, or cars; there’s not anything inherently priceless about them. You just couldn’t be bothered to be considerate of anyone but your immediate self.
I bet you don’t return your shopping carts either. — Nate Petroelje
Pet Peeve #6: Maniac Merging
Some onramps around metro Detroit are criminally short, or curved, or both, and construction is omnipresent, but merging should not be this chaotic. Whether we’re merging left to right to avoid construction, or right to left following an onramp, Michigan seems to completely misunderstand merging. You’ve got the aggressively proactive law abiders, who move over the minute they see any sign, even the ones reading “lane ends in one mile,” and you’ve got the normal people who wait until the lane is actually about to merge—when they can actually lay eyes on the light-up arrow signs, or because they counted down on their GPS or odometer from that “one mile” sign, and are planning to nudge over, at speed, with a comfortable 0.2 miles to go.
These opposite behaviors produce the strangest dynamics: People slamming on their brakes to merge as soon as they know a merge is coming, no matter if it’s a mile or half a mile away, and get behind each other in the most courteous yet most dangerously chaotic way, and the others shotgunning past those obsessively orderly cars, who of course honk at anyone who “cuts” the line. Anywhere else, that cutting would just be regular merging! — Grace Houghton
Mine is people asking “How much you want for it?” Then after you tell them “It’s not for sale” they ask “But how much would you sell it for?” After giving them a ridiculously high number they say “Oh, it’s not worth that much!”
So why’d you ask again??!!
I went through this with a 57 Chev. People wanting to know how much I would sell it for – me telling them it’s not for sale. When they’d ask how much would I take for it I’d ask them how much would they give me for it – they were the one wanting to buy it even though it wasn’t for sale. This would go back & forth a few times with them never offering a price so I’d finally tell them I guess they weren’t really interested in buying it. Very tiresome.
Answer in Russian. John Wick style.
My peeve is with the car companies. No CD players and replaced the console gear shift with a stupid dial. Not for me !
My biggest peeve is ignorant people at car shows. I own a completely restored antique army jeep, which l bring to shows. I constantly get young people in their 20’s-30’s that want to try and see if they can pile 8 of their buddies into it. When you tell them No Way, they get real mad and then say that their “Tax Dollars” paid for the jeep. These idiots were not even born when the jeep was made and served in the army!! They just don’t get it.
If you see a Prius with a COEXIST bumper sticker parked in front of a Unitarian Church, you can be 100% sure that its owner is an NPR listener.
Hey! That’s me!
(kidding)
Subaru owners are…?
Merge lanes for the freeway! You do NOT stop to merge out West. I know one or two states on the East Coast do/did have stop signs at the top of the lane. Here we speed up to ABOVE the speed of the traffic, and then slow down the 5 MPH to merge.(at least the good drivers)
People Texting while driving!! I had a BMW R1200RT totaled with me on it because of this! And now that I live in Idaho, I see it daily, as it’s NOT a law the local police care about.
Not for nothing but if you’ve been “stereotyped” as some who doesn’t use turn signals it’s not bc of the car you are driving. It’s bc you’re a redneck hairdresser who doesn’t use turn signals.
Seattle area here – Prius in left lane doing 59 MPH. It’s a thing.
Another merge offender can be found in the driver who tries to prematurely force a crawling traffic merge by straddling BOTH lanes well before the actual merge point… “you WILL merge, behind ME.”
Among the more dangerous miscreants are the ones who drive across the lanes in parking lots, making it a crap shoot for anyone attempting to back out of a spot. Look left, look right… never mind, they’re coming from every direction.
Two items—drivers in a shopping center parking lot that hold you up while they insist on backing in to a parking space, and those at a stoplight who hold back a car length or two from the vehicle in front of them. That last situation means someone trying to enter a turning lane could have his back end hanging out in oncoming traffic.
As far as backing into a parking spot, my work requires me to back in. Something about safety. I’ve got so used to it I do it almost always, unless they are slanted spots. So… to sound like the old fart I am, chill out or leave earlier.
People who try to back into a parking spot with cars waiting behind them and they take multiple tries before finally getting in. Particularly aggravating when they do it near the entrance and cars get caught in traffic behind them!
One of my pet peeves is a driver who refuses to move out of the right lane or, if that is not possible, to back off to allow an oncoming car to merge into the traffic.
Ramp traffic is to yield to roadway traffic.
You know that, right?
Speed up ahead of them, then match their pace and merge. Or, move in behind them.
If my exit ramp is just after your on ramp, I’m not moving. +2 if I have a trailer.
Depends where you are. Illinois places the burden on both thru traffic and merging traffic to “…adjust his speed and lateral position so as to avoid a collision…” (625 ILCS 5/11-905).
I don’t know about other states but I doubt Illinois is the only one. Makes things very confusing.
You forgot Traffic Circles, or maybe you are fortunate to not have them. The one lane with Yield sign that many people stop at, don’t know how to merge. The two lane going straight through on the outside with Yield signs and the person going left that doesn’t understand Right of Way. Combine Right of Way and Merge for a really fun time.
I’ll add the driver that slows down and opens 6-7 car lengths at a green light trying to insure that they are the last car through the light before it turns.
Those blanks are there so you can add the button for the ejector seat, rocket launcher, machine gun, etc…without drilling a hole in the dash.
How about the older Land Rover Discoveries when you didn’t pay for the heated seats. You didn’t get blank button spots, butt rather got a different template without the spots for the buttons. Actually, you got the heated seats, just no way t turn them on. There was an aftermarket template with the extra buttons installed. Plug it all in and you had your heated seats.