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
Stop complaining you bunch of whiners. Go enjoy your cars.
I completely agree with the blank switch covers. My base 2007 FJ Cruiser came with a whole panel of blank switches. I went on Amazon and ordered a package of switch labels. My FJ now sports switches to launch missiles, deploy shields, activate sonar, eject unwanted passengers, spread tire puncturing tacks and to go invisible. None of them actually do any of these things but it brings a smile every time I glance at those functions.
Hairdresser: Miata
NPR car: Volvo
No blinkers: BMW
Retired: Could be a few. Let’s go Buick
Redneck: There’s a long list, but a beater pickup from the Big Three would be a viable top pick
Yep!
Buick (’73 Centurion)
Cadillac (’17 ATS-V)
Camaros and a Firebird
“special [;ace in hell for people who stop at freeway on ramps” …. not to defend the effing idiots, but, as one who was among them in 1967, I was stationed in California at the time, but the only place I had ever driven was metropolitan NY where it was common to have stop signs at the end of on ramps …. something about insufficient access lanes. Whatever the cause, I had never been exposed to a high speed access ramp (and they make sooooo much sense) and simply acted from experience.
There may be others like me whose driving experience (at the time they did it) was severely limited. however, right now, I think they ought to run off the road.
When I learned to drive, 1958, the driver’s manual said that it was the law that if your turning from the left lane you turn into the left lane and if your turning from the lane to the right you end up in the lane to the right. This pertains specifically to roads with two turning lanes in the same direction. Sometime in the last 6.6 decades that law seems to have been changed making it mandatory to switch lanes, without using your blinker, while making a turn. Every day at every intersection after I make the turn I am blocked from changing lanes back to the old man’s lane on the right by the car that was directly behind me before we turned. Then there is the absolute ignoring of any and all speed limit signs.
There is an Interstate exit ramp in Rockland County, NY that baffles all of the locals. It comes to a stoplight with 4 lanes. A left turn lane, a straight through lane, and 2 right turn lanes into a 4 lane roadway. That 4 lane almost immediately turns into 2 through lanes and 2 right turn lanes, with on of the right turn lanes turning into a mandatory exit lane into a shopping center.
You can imagine what goes on from the first 2 right turn lanes. The guy in the lane away from the curb thinks he owns 3 of the lanes after the turn and the guy at the curb want to go straight after his first turn.
They all think they are right, and are willing to fight about it.
In Illinois, it’s right turn/right lane and left turn/any lane.
I am super confused… Why would you get upset that someone doesn’t want you touching their car. It’s not yours have some respect.
People.
My all time peeve –
A beautiful warm sunny day and someone drives their >$150k exotic and it hasn’t been washed in months. And if it has a convertible top it is left up.
Pride of ownership, man!
Looks like the writer hit several nerves based on the comments. If you’re 25 maybe you feel the need to rev and or make serious noise when leaving a C&C Saturday morning! The you bitch when it gets cancelled! Dah! Be respectful of people who live around where you are 7-8-9 on Sat morning and actuall give a -sh..t about other non car people. May it won’t be cancelled after 2-4 weeks of the adolesence!!
Off topic but …..
Jeep owners who install the biggest tires they can fit and have no lift kit
Why a Jeep if you don’t off road?
That is what a Cherokee is for
Blanks are a badge of honour showing you didn’t fall for useless options
People who merge with their brakes have a special tier in Hell in my book.
Can’t merge when you are stopped, but they try anyways.
So few know how to Merge with the skinny pedal.
These people deserve self driving cars so they can quit robbing the rest of us the joy of properly handling an automobile.
The two most dangerous things on the road:
1. A Mom driving a Suburban with a latte in one hand and a phone in the other hand.
2. A small man driving a big pickup.
My pet peeve is when I park way out in a parking lot to stay as far away as possible from people who like to park close and bang cars, only to come out and find someone parked right next to me while there are fifty open spots.
Every Single Time !
Here’s one that’s not only annoying but a far more dangerous maneuver than most, costing countless innocent lives over the last 120 years:
So there you are, driving your Prius on a sunny and warm Saturday morning westbound on a typical two-late secondary route with few if any passing lanes. Traffic is relatively light, and you’re listening to your favorite Taylor Swift misandry-fest at full volume and cruising along at 55 mph in a 60.
Soon there is a caravan building up behind you of five vehicles, the closest of which is a classic sixties-vintage gas guzzler on their way to a show-and-shine. You make no effort to either pick up the pace of move over because after all, you’re not speeding and besides, this Boomer and his polluting guzzler deserve this.
Meanwhile the driver of the classic is waiting patiently for a long enough broken line with no oncoming traffic to allow for a safe pass, completely oblivious to the self-righteous mind-set of the Prius driver in front of him.
Finally just such a break presents itself and the driver of the classic signals, pulls out and passes the Prius. Classic dude expediently gains what he thinks is enough distance between the Prius before signaling and moving back into the west-bound lane – only to realize upon shoulder-checking that the Prius driver has floored it (those electrics, for all of their shortcomings, DO have decent torque) and is now blocking him from completing the pass(!). Prius driver just couldn’t BEAR to be passed by someone who represents a demographic that she’d developed a severe hate-on for merely existing. “The horror!”
Meanwhile there is now a car coming in the opposite direction, so the driver of the classic errs on the side of caution and backs off with the intent to slip back in behind the self-righteous Prius driver. But just as he tries to do this the Prius driver realizing the situation, chickens out and slams on the brakes to allow the classic to complete the pass – but the classic is still beside her and lost any momentum with which he could have completed the pass had he known what this idiot was going to do.
There’s no shoulder on either side of the highway and the driver of the oncoming Honda Accord cannot stop in time and has nowhere else to go. The death toll: one older gentleman in the classic car and a family of four in the Accord.
Back to you, the Prius driver: You somehow manage to avoid contact and, realizing that there would be consequences, you quickly and cowardly leave the scene rather than stop to render any assistance. But during the investigation you ultimately get caught due to cell phone records and a description of your car by one of the drivers following farther behind in the caravan – not that this does any good for the five people you killed.
My pet peeves, Jeeps that have a mess of ducks on the dash and the spare tire covers that say “You wouldn’t understand, it’s a Jeep thing”. Next, new cars that show up at car shows with the window sticker still in the window. Am I supposed to be impressed by what you paid for your new Ford King Ranch Edition pickup? And, one more. Is that supposed to be cool when your exhaust backfires like crazy when you’re decelerating or between shifts in your 1995 Honda Civic hooptie. Pronounced huup-tee , any vehicle ,usually an Asian import, that’s worth $1000 or less, that is equipped with a $2000 stereo system and a $300 fart can muffler with a 2 1/2 inch inlet adapted down to the 1 1/2 inch exhaust pipe sticking out the rear end.