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
I spent 40 years and about 4 million miles on the road. When I retired, I thought I had seen every “Stupid 4-Wheeler Trick” in the book. I have learned in my retirement that there are more books to be written. However, my pet peeves are the driver who stops at the end of an entrance ramp; the driver who slows down for his exit at least 1/2 mile before the exit; speeding past traffic knowing there’s a merge ahead to make everybody else slow down–or stop–to get past traffic. My favorite, though is when there is a line of trucks running about 68mph and I’m passing them with my cruise set at 72 and some dimwit comes up behind me wanting to run 90-100 flashing his headlights at me. I keep going my speed. I will respond to red, red and blue, or blue flashing lights if I can move over, but not some idiot flashing his headlights.
This is an oldy, but it still pertains. People who drive in urban areas at night, street lights are on, with their high beams and driving lights on, other accessory lights are on, just for the fun of annoying other people travelling in the opposite direction. A quick flashing of your high beams back at the offending driver to remind them of their carelessness does not seems to correct their indifference to the safety of others.
quick note:
nowadays flashing your lights at another’s high beams might get you shot. lottsa hotheads out there packin’ heat.
just sayin’….
Good grief.
Eternally Idling in parking lots…
Regarding stopping mid-block: on a 5 lane road, middle lane for turns, I was in left most lane headed west when I noticed the traffic in the right lane had stopped. There was nothing in front of me, and I could not see any reason for the other lane to be stopped.
In any case, I did slow down. Then a car pulled out from a parking lot on the right, in front of the moron that had stopped midblock to let someone pull out and cross traffic.
The other moron was the one that pulled out of the parking lot, directly into my path. And of course I run into the car. I was in a Miata, and had not been able to spot the driver pulling out until it was too late.
The driver could have chosen to exit at the other parking lot exit, where there was a traffic light,
I understand what you are saying about blanks being somewhat unsightly, but they don’t automatically mean that you didn’t get an option. The blank may be there because that really nice decked-out model you purchased does something automatically for you, and the blank is there because some poor unfortunate souls have to push a button to make it happen.
Drivers who do not turn on their lights when it is getting dark, or rainy or snowy or other other conditions that make it hard for others to see them. Especially for bikes to see them. They think, I guess, that they can still see somewhat so do not need lights, not realizing that lights fulfill two purposes, to see and BE SEEN! So conceited. Apologies if this is already mentioned.
Burnouts are for 16 year olds in Camaros or Mustangs, bad parking is SOMETIMES determined by who was in the neighboring parking last, many stereotypes are based on reality (but not all), and merging onto an expressway was never taught in Massachusetts. You stay in on ramp as long as possible and at the last moment cut into traffic regardless as to what’s there. Even worse if you’re trying to get on to one of the Cape bridges in summer, then you pass all the cars waiting to run to the front of the line to Masshole your way in.
No lights on when driving in inclement weather. Rain, fog, etc.
Fearful interstate overtakers
Left lane cruising until the timid begin to overtake a semi. Drop 10-15mph – eeeeease by – speed up to keep sane drivers from passing before next trucker
The result of being an A$$hole leaving the car show. weekly event was subsequently cancelled by parking lot owners https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0rhf6UMRWo
People staring at their phone while driving. Texting, face-timing, facebooking, whatever… that person looks stupid, and they are a danger to themselves and others.
And if you’re in front of me at a red light staring down at your phone and the light turns green, you have about 2 seconds before you get a honk.
I saw the remains of a late model Camaro leaving a show, somebody told me the driver was in intensive care,someone else said he died. Either way, I am taking my sweet old time leaving shows from now on.
Here’s mine: Driving my motorhome or pulling a trailer I tend to keep to the rightmost lane on the interstate at, or just a little under, the speed limit.
My peeve is drivers coming up the on-ramp and dallying there, slowing down, can’t make up their mind to merge… Finally they slow down and fall in behind me. Then it’s Hammer Down! as they swing out to pass on the left.
This happens at least half the time I’m driving past a freeway on-ramp in a large rig.