{"id":5411,"date":"2015-03-03T05:31:57","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T19:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=5411"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:11:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:11:22","slug":"totally-pointless-driving-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/driving\/totally-pointless-driving-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"Totally Pointless Driving Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5412\" style=\"width: 233px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/lowbridge.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5412\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5412\" alt=\"Low bridge coming! Duck your head and shrink down in your seat behind the wheel, as this really helps your car fit underneath.\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/lowbridge.jpg\" width=\"223\" height=\"226\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5412\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Low bridge coming! Duck your head and shrink down in your seat behind the wheel, as this really helps your car fit underneath!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We do some pretty funny things in our cars at times.\u00a0 I\u2019m not just talking about crazy overtaking, attempting to do fifty things while steering or cutting other people off.\u00a0 Nor am I talking about the things we do at traffic lights when we forget that our car is not our own little bubble that makes us invisible.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about the peculiar habits we have while driving (or being driven) that are completely pointless.<\/p>\n<p>You know the sort of thing I mean.\u00a0 We\u2019ve all done them.\u00a0 Things like turning the radio down when we\u2019re looking at the road signs because if it\u2019s quiet, we can see better.\u00a0 Or if you\u2019re the passenger being driven by someone who likes to put their foot to the floor just a bit too much, you try to stamp on invisible brakes.\u00a0 Why do we do these things?\u00a0 Do we even stop to think about them at all?<\/p>\n<p>Here is a small sample of some more pointless in-car behaviour:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ducking your head (whether you\u2019re in the driver\u2019s seat or in the passenger seat) as you approach a tunnel or anything with a clearance warning sign.\u00a0 Because ducking your head will really make the car fit underneath that low bridge, won\u2019t it?<\/li>\n<li>Talking to your car to encourage it to get going on a cold morning.\u00a0 \u201cCome on, old girl, come one, come on! Get going!\u201d\u00a0 Or when you\u2019re trying to tow a heavy load up a steep hill and are nearly at the top and don\u2019t really want to change down all the way to second gear.\u00a0 \u201cYou can do it, come on, nearly there, come on, old girl\u2026\u201d It\u2019s a machine, not a dog or a horse.\u00a0 Even if the car has voice activated this and that, the engine can\u2019t hear you.<\/li>\n<li>Shifting your centre of gravity depending on what you are trying to do, as if the car was a bicycle. This includes leaning back when going down a hill, leaning forward when trying to go faster, tilting your body from side to side to help it go around a corner, leaning right back when you want the driver to slow down\u2026\u00a0 We do this in spite of how we\u2019ve spent oodles of cash on wheel alignments and ensuring that the suspension is just right, to say nothing of picking a vehicle with stability control.\u00a0 This may be a hangover from when we rode bicycles but still\u2026<\/li>\n<li>Closing our eyes during a near miss or when we think a crash is inevitable.\u00a0 OK, part of this is instinct kicking in to make sure that our vulnerable eyes are safe.\u00a0 Part of it is an ostrich-like feeling of \u201cI don\u2019t want to look at what\u2019s about to happen,\u201d but it\u2019s utterly insane.<\/li>\n<li>Sucking our breath in as we negotiate a tight parking space or a manoeuvre in a tight turn.\u00a0 This works fine if we\u2019re on foot and trying to squeeze past the shopping trolley in the checkout aisle so we can finish putting the groceries on the conveyor belt and go to pay.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t work quite so well when trying to park your big old <a href=\"http:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/car-reviews\/landrover\/\">Land Rover <\/a>\u00a0in a narrow gap between two very new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/car-reviews\/audi\/\">Audis <\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, some pointless behaviour is encouraged by car manufacturers.\u00a0 Why else do they provide \u201cchicken handles\u201d for the passengers?\u00a0 (I think they\u2019re called \u201coverhead grips\u201d officially, but I\u2019ve never heard this term being used outside an official blurb or description from the makers.)\u00a0 You should be wearing your seatbelt, and your seatbelt is a lot sturdier than those little screws holding the chicken handle to the interior of the car.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t take much to pull one of those off.\u00a0 In a collision, rollover or similar disaster, hanging onto the chicken handle is not going to do much to protect you.\u00a0 The G-forces involved are going to rip the handle off or dislocate your shoulder before they stop you flying if they\u2019re all you\u2019re relying on.\u00a0 So why are they provided in cars?\u00a0 What is the point of a chicken handle? \u00a0(Apart from providing a good place to hang up your best suit so it doesn\u2019t get crumpled, that is.)<\/p>\n<p>So, it\u2019s confession time.\u00a0 What pointless things do you do?\u00a0 I\u2019ll admit to stomping on invisible brakes as a passenger, ducking under low bridges and talking to my car (I also talk to other machinery, so I may be slightly insane).\u00a0 What about you?<\/p>\n<p>Safe and happy driving,<\/p>\n<p>Megan <a href=\"http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/offers-zaim\/webbankir-online-zaim-na-kartu.html\" style=\"visibility: hidden;\">http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/offers-zaim\/webbankir-online-zaim-na-kartu.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We do some pretty funny things in our cars at times.\u00a0 I\u2019m not just talking about crazy overtaking, attempting to do fifty things while steering or cutting other people off.\u00a0 Nor am I talking about the things we do at traffic lights when we forget that our car is not our own little bubble that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-driving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11785,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions\/11785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}