‘Cars filled with soft toys’: People reveal their biggest driving ‘icks’

A new survey has asked people to identify the in-car habits they find most irritating… and we’re all guilty of a few (but mainly #6).

Watching someone struggle to parallel park and playing loud music with the windows down are just some of the bad habits that made it onto a list of common ‘car icks’ contributing to relationship tension amongst couples in the United Kingdom.

In a highly scientific (cough) study, Italian carmaker Fiat surveyed 2000 people in the UK about the various ways in which their partner’s driving behaviour gives them “the ick”.

For those unfamiliar with this particular colloquialism, Fiat helpfully explained:

“The ick is when attraction to a current or potential partner suddenly changes to a feeling of disgust, lessening or completely eradicating your romantic feelings towards them, because the individual did something either disturbing or annoying.”

Fiat claims 50 per cent of its respondents aged 18 to 25 have ended a relationship over this abstract phenomenon.

According to Fiat’s findings, the most ick-inciting car-based behaviour is tailgating, which was listed by 31 per cent of respondents, followed by road rage in second spot, and “vehicles filled with stuffed toys” coming in third.

An alarming 26 per cent of respondents listed soft-toy-filled cars as their biggest gripe, landing yet another blow to any parents of young children who are attempting to re-enter the dating scene.

Sixth on the list was a behaviour resonated with several people in the Drive office: watching someone unsuccessfully parallel park.

Honking your horn the second the light goes green and revving the engine at a red light were also identified as wholly undesirable habits.

However, some driving icks were more harsh than others, with respondents claiming they found it annoying when “people return to their cars with their hands full and struggle to get the door open and end up dropping everything from their hands”.

You can read the full list of driving icks below, but please consider it a mere leaping-off point for you to share your own driving icks in the comments section.

The top 15 car icks, according to Fiat

1. Tailgating
2. Road rage
3. Vehicles filled with stuffed toys
4. When people return to their cars with their hands full and struggle to get the door open and end up dropping everything from their hands
5. Driving with gloves on
6. Watching someone unsuccessfully parallel park
7. When someone honks the second the traffic light goes green
8. Playing loud music with the window down
9. When drivers speed through puddles, splashing pedestrians
10. Honking while in a traffic queue
11. When someone revs their engine while at a red light or while stopped
12. Driving extremely slowly below the speed limit
13. Stopping too far away from a ticket machine at car park / toll road and unable to reach the ticket
14. Having windscreen wipers on their fastest mode when it is only drizzling 
15. Filling the car with fuel using gloves

The post ‘Cars filled with soft toys’: People reveal their biggest driving ‘icks’ appeared first on Drive.

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