What your car habits say about you
Whether you’re the driver who has named their pride and joy (hello, Lola) or the one with bumper stickers of stick figures, we all have habits when it comes to our cars and driving. So, what are yours? Vote in the polls below.
What it says about you
If you answered yes, you’ve piqued our curiosity. Send us an email and let us know the name of your pride and joy. If you haven’t guessed already, I had a pink Nissan Micra named Lola. Now back to the facts. Giving an object, like a car, a human name is called anthropomorphism. In 2010, researchers at Harvard and the University of Chicago claimed naming a car was a way for the owner to show adoration and care. Aw, Lola – I love you.
What it says about you
If you answered yes, like me, chances are you’ve gone into panic at least once or twice in the parking lot. You swore you left your vehicle in car park B12 or was it A12? Rest assured, you’re not alone.
We’ve done some research (mainly for a laugh) and found that a 76-year-old German man reportedly forgot where he parked his Volkswagen Passat back in 1997. He reported the car stolen, but it was eventually found 20 years later in a parking garage that was about to be demolished.
Last year, a group of psychologists in the Netherlands surveyed shoppers in a parking lot and found half of them had regular trouble remembering where they parked. Men appeared to do a better job of estimating the distance to their cars and finding them without detours. Our advice? When in doubt, steer clear of multi-storey parking lots.
What it says about you
You have the entire car park to yourself until another vehicle pulls up right next to you. Why? Believe it or not, there’s academic research on this parking phenomenon.
A study by the University of Oxford’s Transport Studies Unit in 1990 (yes, drivers were in the habit of parking like this even back then) found that up to 39% of people parked in the same spot when visiting the same location.
The findings revealed that drivers followed the strategy of driving straight to their favourite car park because experience had taught them it would most likely to be empty. This might explain why your preferred parking spot is also someone else’s favourite. What’s more, parking in the same space might help you remember where your car is located in busy car parks. Note to self: stick to A12.
What it says about you
If you answered never, we hope you at least shower more than that. Keeping your car clean doesn’t have to be done every day. Quick spot cleans, like giving your windscreen a squeegee (if you need help with that, we’ve got the secret to doing it streak-free) or hosing dirty number plates, can increase your visibility of the road. What’s more, other road users can see you just as clearly.
If you need more convincing on the benefits of regular cleaning, a dirty windscreen can land you a $362 fine and a $94 Victims of Crime Levy. A dirty number plate could set you back a whopping $527 fine and $94 Victims of Crime Levy.
What it says about you
Besides losing my car in parking lots, I’m also notoriously known for misplacing my keys, and turning the house upside down until I find them (sometimes I’m holding them in my hands). Cue awkward silence.
According to a 2015 TED Talk by neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, people tend to lose their car keys due to a lapse in their spatial memory, which helps track important information. Now, while you’d think car keys are important, remember, the brain works in mysterious ways.
“It [spatial memory] is really only good for finding things that don’t move around much, not so good for things that move around, so this is why we lose car keys and reading glasses and passports,” Levitin explains in the TED Talk.
On that note, where’s my passport?