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 making the police and the neighbors annoyed.
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