How To Really Annoy Other Drivers: The 10 Worst Driving Habits

OK, everybody, gather round. Mama’s going to teach you how to be a terrible driver*. You know the one: that driver, the one who everybody hates and who nobody wants to ride with. In fact, I’m going to tell you about all the bad habits that you simply must acquire if you want to lose friends and irritate people.

*For the sake of any non-human robots reading this, this article is an example of the ancient art of sarcasm and irony.

Of course, there are plenty of bad habits when it comes to driving, but these are some of the most annoying. They aren’t stupidly dangerous, like running red lights or driving on the wrong side of the road, but they are still somewhat dangerous all the same.

#1: Incorrect Indicators

Those amber lights on the side of your car front and back are designed to let your fellow drivers know if you are about to change lane or turn a corner. But other people should be able to read your mind, right? After all, you should be able to go where you want to when you want to, and why should you be bothered taking time to use those indicators, even though the lever for applying them is right by your hand (assuming you’ve got both hands on your steering wheel, that is). Failure to use them will really make the blood of other drivers boil quite satisfactorily.

However, this isn’t the only way to annoy your fellow drivers with your poor indicator habits. A safer way to mis-indicate is to turn on your indicators far too early and keep everybody guessing as to whether you’re turning the corner or turning into a driveway. At least the people behind you will slow down so they don’t bang into your rear end, and you can hold them up for ages and then (extra bonus points) accuse them of Annoying Driving Habit #2.

#2: Tailgating

Yes, you’ve heard of the two second rule, but that’s for wimps, right? After all, that person in front of you has had his or her indicators on for the last minute, so you can hardly be blamed for driving a scant metre from their rear bumper. Besides, why did they put bumper stickers on the rear of their car if they didn’t expect you to read them? Never mind that you’re driving so close that the driver in front of you doesn’t dare to slow down one iota to avoid you rear-ending them. That’s a way of ensuring that everybody keeps up to the right speed, right?

Even if you’re a little further away and are able to stop in time if the driver in front of you does finally decide to turn into a driveway or if they have to stop for something insignificant, like a dog running into the road, you can still annoy and intimidate them. After all, you’re only sticking close to them waiting for a chance to overtake, and they’re guilty of Annoying Driving Habit #3.

#3: Channelling Your Inner Gandalf

Every time someone comes up close behind you, you need to get your battered grey hat and wizard’s staff on and shout “You shall not pass!” However, if you’re unable to make the road crack at their feet, sending them plunging like a balrog into the chasm beneath the Bridge of Khazad-Dum, there’s a simpler way to stop the people behind you from overtaking and annoy them at the same time. If you’re really lucky, they may let out a suitable enraged roar.

All you need to do is to keep your speed really slow during all the bits of road that are windy, filled with oncoming traffic or painted with pretty yellow lines down the middle. Once these useful areas have shifted to open, empty straight roads with passing lanes, speed up to the full speed limit so that the driver in the car either doesn’t pass you or is forced to break the speed limit to get past you. Bonus points if you can bait them into doing so going past a speed trap or when there’s a cop hiding behind a bush.

This surefire way to annoy all your fellow drivers is best combined with Annoying Driving Habits #4 and #5.

#4: Not Pulling Over

OK, so there’s a queue of traffic piling up behind you like you’re leading them to freedom. At long last, you’ve come to part of the road with a wide shoulder, or possibly even a slow vehicle bay. To get the satisfaction of completely ticking off every single one of those drivers and their passengers, don’t pull over. Just keep on driving and staying in your lane.

#5: Living In The Fast Lane

Finally, to ensure that your fellow drivers start shouting dubious things about your ancestry and your love life, get into the fast lane or the passing lane (in Australia, that’s the one on the right that doesn’t have the oncoming traffic). And stay there. Don’t go at speeds that get used when overtaking. Don’t even go at the open road speed. Go just below it.

After all, you can’t let anybody pass you, as they may be guilty of Annoying Driving Habit #6.

#6: Scantily Clad Loads

If you have a ute or if you’re towing a trailer, it makes sense to tie down anything large like tables and chairs. You don’t want the inconvenience of losing that. However, if you’re taking a load of garbage to the dump or if you have a lot of things in the back that you don’t mind losing, such as leaves, grass clippings or stones. So to ensure that you enrage your fellow drivers, don’t bother covering this load. Leave it naked, even. That way, some will blow back as you drive, right into the windscreen of whoever’s behind you (see Annoying Driving Habit #2). If your load involved stones or gravel, then you may be lucky enough to chip their windscreen. Extra bonus points if the person behind you is getting about on a motorbike or bicycle– those peasants who don’t have as many wheels as you deserve a load of old barbecue ash in the face, right?

If you don’t have a trailer or a ute, you can get a similar effect by applying Annoying Driving Habit #7.

#7: Litterbugs

Your car is your castle, and you don’t want to clutter up your precious car with old coffee cups, uneaten fast food meals and packages, etc. You could merely keep these in a bag and dispose of them at the end of your journey, but why squander the opportunity to irritate not just other drivers but pedestrians, home owners, town councils and environmentalists? Out the window with it!

Throwing an apple core or peach pit out into the grass in the middle of the countryside is for amateurs. If you do this when nobody is in sight, this won’t annoy anybody. However, for maximum effect, dispose of plastic, paper or glass that you can’t be bothered with any longer, and do it in a built-up area.

However, a still-burning cigarette butt (here, I’m assuming that the way you drive isn’t your only bad habit) might be a bit too far. After all, you could hit a cyclist in the face with hot ash or, during drought season, start a fire. And the person behind you might be indulging in Annoying Driving Habit #8, meaning that they’ll be able to squeal to the authorities and get you into hot water.

#8: Staying Glued To Your Phone

You spend a lot of time in your car and you’ve got a busy life, so of course you NEED to stay on your phone. There are calls to take, and you’re pretty sure that you saw a text message or Snapchat or maybe it was a notification on Messenger from your boss or maybe it was your boyfriend or possibly it was your mother, but you’d better check, and then even if it came from the person in the group chat from the book club commenting on the latest bit of chick lit you’re working through at the moment, well you have to read it then and there because it would be rude to ghost them and just leave them with a Seen message without even a like or an emoji, right**? You have to consider the people in your life who are there only virtually ahead of the drivers around you! Besides, if checking your phone leads you to miss a light changing, make manoeuvres at the last minute (see Annoying Driving Habit #1) or swerve in front of people, you’ll annoy them to perfection.

Moreover, if you want to indulge in Annoying Driving Habit #9, you have to curate the right Spotify list.

#9: Wannabe DJs

You might not have the world’s most expensive car but you certainly have a very good sound system with very powerful speakers. If you’ve gone to all that effort, you have to flaunt it, right? Wind that speaker up, put your windows down and let that music play! Now, doing this with middle of the road music might only mildly annoy people. But to really grind people’s gears, select something that is loved by only a select few, preferably with dodgy lyrics of the sort that would have seen your grandfather getting his mouth washed out with soap by great-grandma.

If you’re a fan of this particular habit, then you probably regret the fact that Elon Musk chickened out on having some varieties of Tesla making fart noises when travelling at slow speeds. You’d have had a lot of fun with that – think of how many people you could tick off with an EV with a loud stereo and farting noises, especially if you drove past where they’re coming out of a funeral or something along those lines. However, that would probably mean that you’d drain your battery fairly quickly and have to drag yourself to the nearest supermarket with a charging station (see Annoying Driving Habits #4 and #5) and hope that someone else hasn’t decided to try in Annoying Driving Habit #10.

#10: Entitled Parking

It’s raining, so you want to park close to the doors of the mall or the supermarket or K-Mart or your other retail destination of choice. Otherwise, you might have to WALK (Gasp! The horror!). So park wherever you like. You’ll have the satisfaction of getting people’s goat and getting their knickers in a twist if you park your car somewhere clearly designated for something special (who do they think they are, right?). Put your 4×4 in the disabled parking spot or in the mothers with babies parks (your 4×4 will probably blend in with the others in the parents-only carparks anyway as long as nobody sees that you don’t have baby seats cluttering up your back seat). Or to become everybody’s least favourite person, park your 5-litre petrol or diesel in the EV charging spaces.

Now, have I missed any?  Who wants to suggest a few more annoying habits guaranteed to irritate?

**100 words in one sentence – I think that’s my personal best. Tell me, are you not annoyed?

What’s Causing Those Potholes?

Potholes are so annoying!  I know we need to be grateful that most of our roads are sealed and aren’t rutted, but a pothole was bad news. They were bad news even when roads weren’t sealed and ruts were common.  The shallow ones bump you so hard that not even the world’s best suspension system can cancel it out (unless you dodge them), and the large ones can damage your car (more on that below).  If you try to dodge a pothole, you can put yourself and/or other drivers at risk/ In the case of some modern cars that have driver aids that were designed for and tested on perfect roads, things like lane change assistance might throw a wobbly if you detect a pothole in the road ahead and adjust your driving line carefully to avoid it (the systems are smart enough to shut up if your movements are abrupt).

Why do potholes appear?  Why does what used to be a perfectly good piece of road suddenly look like a teeny asteroid hit it?  Are heavy trucks and road trains to blame?  And what can you do about them?

The thing that causes potholes is nature striking back.  They are caused by one of the most powerful elemental forces in the world: water.  As you’ve probably seen at some point in your life, whether it’s a catastrophic landslide, a cliff eaten away by the action of the sea or just a rut in your garden after someone left the hose on for too long, water sweeps away and acts on dirt. And it’s water that causes potholes.

Now, it’s not the case that a pothole will appear where a puddle has been.  It’s true that both potholes and puddles will form in parts of the road that have slumped or become rutted, but one doesn’t directly cause the other.  There are other factors at play.  The condition of the road is one of them and the amount (and weight) of traffic is another.

Water will get into the soil beneath the road and start loosening the particles of dirt, meaning that ruts and holes will form.  This has always been the case ever since roads were invented.  If anything, the whole point of road surfacing is to have something that doesn’t form ruts and holes every time it rains so that wheels can run over it smoothly.  The different layers of a modern paved road are designed to ensure that water drains away well (and that the road will hold its shape despite heavy trafficking – but that’s good story for another time) with the asphalt over the top forming a mostly waterproof and resilient seal.  However, nature will always prevail, and water will get in.

Once the water has got in, the most common thing that happens next to create a pothole in Australia is that the water will start washing away small, fine particles of dirt, then larger particles, and then a bit more.  This will weaken the ground beneath the asphalt surfacing, as there’s less holding it up.  As traffic goes over it, the asphalt surface will be pushed down a little, not so much that you’d feel it but still a little.  And this compresses the water, which increases the pressure it exerts on the surrounding particles of dirt.  Eventually, a characteristic pattern of cracks will appear on the surface of the asphalt, known as alligator cracking because the pattern looks like the skin of a big old croc.

Eventually, the friction from tyres rolling over the asphalt will break some of the surfacing loose, exposing what’s underneath. The hole will soon get wider and wider, and you’ll get a fair dinkum pothole, and it will get worse and worse the more the water gets in.

Water in its liquid state is the primary cause of potholes in Australia, although in parts of the country where you get frosts – and in other parts of the world where winters get particularly savage – another factor is at play. Water expands as it freezes, so any water in a tiny crack of the pavement or beneath the surface will expand. The asphalt, however, will become more rigid and brittle, so the expanding ice will break the asphalt and crack it more, which accelerates the process of a pothole forming.

Generally, the wetter things get, the more quickly potholes will form.  This trend has often been noticed; in fact, Shakespeare makes a passing reference to it in one of his plays, where a character compares a stupid, pointless and completely undeserved action to fixing highways in summer.

There is nothing that you personally as a driver can do to fix a pothole. That’s the job of the local roading authority. In an ideal world, these people should inspect the roads and take action to resurface and to improve the drainage as soon as they notice signs of alligator cracking.  However, in practice, we tend to see that the problem gets a temporary fix in the form of asphalt being slapped into the hole to fill it up.  This works for a short time, but if poor drainage is what has caused the water to get in and pool beneath the road, another pothole will appear before long.

Ideally, you should drive around a pothole rather than letting your wheel run through them.  If you drive through one, it can cause a lot of damage.  Tyres are the most vulnerable. The most immediate and dramatic type of damage is if the rough edge of the pothole punctures or rips the tyre. However, there are more subtle types of damage.  Going through a pothole can also cause sidewall bulges by forcing the liner apart from the sidewall – and these bulges can blow out very easily.  If the rims are damaged or the alignment is thrown out by going over a pothole too fast, this will make the tyre wear out more quickly and unevenly.

The damage doesn’t stop there.  The shock of going through a pothole will also put a strain on the suspension and steering as well as on the general alignment of the wheels (they’re all interconnected).  This won’t happen straight away, but it will be made worse by continually going over rough roads and hitting potholes (e.g., one that’s on the road you take to work during rush hour, meaning that you have no choice other than driving over it).  In the worst case, which is going into a very deep pothole that the local authorities should really have done something about ages ago, the undercarriage and exhaust system can be scraped and dented as well if it hits the undamaged surface of the road.

In the case of EVs, damage to the underside of the vehicle is particularly serious, as this is where the battery is.  The battery is protected by an underfloor protector, which is like a suit of armour for your EV’s battery.  However, if this underfloor protector is badly damaged, the battery becomes vulnerable and could go into thermal runaway (i.e., catch fire).

Obviously, if you see a pothole, you should avoid it.  If the traffic is light and the road is wide, this isn’t a problem.  However, in heavy traffic, going through that pothole may be unavoidable, as the results of hitting another vehicle would be much worse than the results of going through a pothole.  However, the damage will be less if less force is involved, so dump some of that kinetic energy by slowing down, preferably well before you get to the pothole so you don’t bang on the brakes (however, banging on the brakes will be easier on your car than driving through a pothole, especially if you have brakes with all the driver aids). 

Lastly, the question as to whether trucks are to blame for potholes. The answer “yes but”.  Yes, trucks are heavy and the extra weight wears out the asphalt more quickly.  However, cars are getting bigger and heavier in general, and EVs are particularly heavy compared with their ICE equivalents.  However, the roads are still built to the old specifications for lighter vehicles, and don’t stand up.  What’s more, budget cuts and cheapskate roading authorities mean that roads may be built to meet the bare minimum specifications rather than exceeding the standards for extra durability and resilience.  Perhaps it’s time for the standards to be revise to meet the current vehicle fleet, especially if the government wants greater uptake of the heavier EVs.  

Do City Cars Still Have a Future?

Australians have long had a love affair with SUVs, with most of us only too keen to head into the outdoors, particularly in these times where we can’t travel abroad. However, the SUV format hasn’t only just caught wind in Australia. In fact, it’s a global phenomenon that has been taking place in numerous locations, most notably in China and the US.

The SUV format has become so dominant down under, it is consistently making up around half of all new car sales each and every month. Passenger vehicles have all but fallen out of favour, with light commercial vehicles outranking them on a consistent basis. While the sedan is showing little sign of gaining traction, there is one segment that is faring even worse – the city car format.

As more and more manufacturers ditch the format, is it a dying breed?

Design and practicality take over 

Of course, there are traditional SUVs that have drawn popularity for obvious reasons, but an emerging area in the car market has been new formats like crossovers and liftbacks, which have shaken up the design of cars as we knew them.

Offering levels of practicality and space that bring into question the versatility of the humble city car, these formats have taken off. Then you still have the traditional hatchback as well, which whilst on the slide, still has its niche position in the market.

With the trend clearly in place seeing more compact SUVs, crossovers and liftbacks developed in place of the city car, it’s hard to see this being overturned.

Furthermore, as urban sprawl takes us to destinations living further away from the city, Australians are more concerned with bigger cars that take care of all their needs. This contrasts with the likes of European cities where a compact car is important for smaller commutes in those tight and narrow laneways.

Locally, the humble city car hasn’t found traction among inner-city dwellers either, with an increasing number of young Aussies ditching car ownership altogether, instead opting for ridesharing services or peer-to-peer car rental services that certainly won’t be sufficient to ensure the survival of the city car format.

As each brand’s SUV line-up expands by the year, the writing is on the wall – city cars look likely to eventually fall by the wayside, even if that does become a drawn out affair…hopefully, it’s not before a select few manage to put up a fight and remind us what a shame it will be when they disappear for good.

Ready, Set, Charge!

If you are one of the many who has opted for an EV for whatever reason, then the time will come when you have to charge it up – just like you have to charge up your phone, e-reader or laptop. However, charging an EV is not quite the same as filling up a petrol or diesel tank, and if you’ve never done it before, there are a few things that you’ll have to get used to, especially regarding the different charging speeds.

Deep breath required here. There will be maths.

With all types of charging, the exact amount of time you’ll need to charge the battery will depend on the voltage of the outlet and the battery capacity. The formula for working it out is:

E = P × t

Makes you feel a bit like Einstein, saying that. E is energy, P is power and t is time.  Rearrange this and you get t = E/P or, in plain language:

Your EV’s battery capacity (in kWh) ÷ power output of the charger (in kW) = hours of charging time

This equation, however, mainly applies to charging to 80% rather than 100% (and this is the charge time figure that you’ll see in specs and stats from the manufacturers of EVs). This is because charging isn’t a linear process and it slows down as the battery gets closer to full charge. It’s a mechanism that helps prevent overheating. If you want to charge to 100%, bear in mind that doing so will take a bit longer.

The thing that most people are concerned about is the charging speed. In fact, the charging times are one factor that can put people off purchasing an EV, especially an all-electric BEV or a PHEV. Here in Australia, we have reasonably sensible names for the different charging speeds, unlike in other countries, where you have to ask a few questions to be sure what you’re talking about during a discussion of fast charging – you’ll hear some people talk about fast charging as something different from rapid charging (I feel sorry for those who don’t speak English as their first language because – well, you try explaining the difference between fast and rapid!). Here, we keep things straightforward, calling the two most common charging speeds Level 1 and Level 2, with only the fastest type being called “DC fast charging”.   

Level 1 charging is simplest type of top-up charging that you can do at home or anywhere else you can access a standard common or garden power socket.  It seems very simple but the trouble is that this type of charging is very, very slow. Recharging a completely drained battery will take at least a whole day, as in a 24-hour day.  It could even take 48 hours, which is fine if you’ve got the whole weekend to recharge your car’s batteries as well as your own and don’t have to go anywhere.  On the other hand, if you find yourself at a relative’s place in the country and not enough charge to get you home, you can just plug in and recharge enough to get you home again, or at least to the nearest public charging station (it would be nice if you compensate your relative for the power you’ve used, same as if they let you have a jerrycan of petrol if you’d run out). You may hear this referred to as trickle charging.

Level 2 charging is the sort of charging you do with one of those wall boxes in your home, and Level 2 chargers are what you’ll find in typical public chargers of the kind you’ll see at the supermarket, mall or gym and, if you’re really lucky, at work. Typically, you get around 7.2 km of mileage for every 10 minutes of charging with a 7.2 kW unit, or 22 km of mileage for every 10 minutes with 22 kW charging. (Is anybody else getting flashbacks to the sorts of word problems we had to solve at school?)

However, remember that these mileage figures are approximate and are under ideal conditions. If you have a heavy load, if you have to go into a headwind, or if you want to run the lights or heaters or play music, you’ll reduce the range.

Commercial outlets will often provide chargers not just for their customers’ convenience (although this is certainly part of their motivation) but also as a marketing ploy. If you need to ensure that you’ve got enough charge in your battery to get you home again after work and shopping, then you may need a couple of hours to charge the battery to the right level. However, it may take you only one hour to do your workout at the gym or to pick up your groceries, leaving you with time to kill. Chances are that you’ll spend time in the gym cafeteria or that you’ll spend a bit longer in the supermarket browsing the shelves to fill in the time and will thus spend more money, which is what the commercial outlets are hoping for.  Just be aware of this little ploy and budget for it, develop some iron self-discipline and a healthy bit of patience, or take a book. Just don’t make the mistake of sitting in your car doing things on your phone or laptop with your device plugged into the charger in the car!

Speaking of budgets, a home wallbox will have to be bought separately when you buy a new EV. It’s a good idea to buy one, as otherwise you’ll be relying on super-slow trickle charging or public charging stations to top up the battery. It will also need to be installed by a professional electrician, like your oven or hot water cylinder and for the same reasons. You’ll also have to factor the cost of labour in as well. This is something to keep in mind.

DC fast charging (aka rapid and ultra-rapid charging) uses DC electricity, whereas Levels 1 and 2 use AC electricity. The best known DC chargers are the Tesla superchargers even though, ironically, the original Nikola Tesla promoted and popularized the use of AC electricity. How fast this type of charging will be will depend on the battery, but charging can be done in less than an hour, depending on the kW rating and the type of car. Some EVs charge faster than others. It has to be remembered that not all EVs are compatible with DC fast charging; this is often the case with PHEVs. This is something to check and think about when you buy an EV.

It’s also important to understand the different types of connectors or plugs, but that’s another story for another time.