[Stribog]

Lets face it, we are all Autonuts here and to the outside world of non autonuts are those weird guys & girls who will be the person cleaning a car or bike in rain (you know the image I am talking about). I am sure we have our quirks we impose on those have the privilege of stepping into our vehicles so what are they?

Let me start,

1) Strictly, absolutely no wet food in the car, no liquid aside from water (juice spilt on seats is an absolute mess), definitely not hot beverages. On occasion for long highway drives, I bend the rules a bit but even here as much as possible the food must be consumed outside the car. Yes, I do allow the odd chips packet but the plastic (or paper) waste has to be disposed in a bag inside the car and then dumped in a garbage bin, chucking bags outside cars is also a strict no!

2) My Steering wheel position - I always find it odd that in the city I subconsciously revert to a most uncomfortable position - right hand at 10 on the clock - so my right shoulder is at a cross position and in long drives thanks to traffic I used to have stress on it. Highway was and is ALWAYS 3 and 9 on the clock, both hands firmly holding the steering (I once saw some video, loooong ago where a guy gets his thumb broken because he was driving with one hand - am not even sure if it can happen, but since then it is 3 & 9)

3) NO STICKERING - no cricket balls breaking into the fuel tank, no faith based stickers (no offense to anyone who has it), no funny slogans...just 2 TEAM BHP (live to drive) stickers. The front windshield has my office and residential complex stickers which are mandatory. This includes the egregious (to me) car showroom branding stickers, I always tell them to never put it up. This time though Kun Kia sneaked it in and I need to take it down

4) Nothing in the back which can obscure my view - No cute pillows, no treasure boxes...nothing, even the tissue box I stick it in the backseat pocket

5) Can't ever drive a dusty car and most days I Jopasu it 2 times - morning and before I leave my office

6) Everyone belts up if I know my average speeds will exceed even 60-70 KMPH in a sustained manner and this means the backseat. I face a lot of resistance on this as most Indians don't belt up in the backseat, but either you belt up or you walk.

I know I sound like some dictator but hey, that is the price you pay for a clean, good smelling, safe car.

For my two wheelers only 1 rule,

ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET (drive an Activa so no gear tbh), both rider and pillion whoever they maybe need a helmet.

Let me know your fun quirks.

[a4anurag]

The only rule I ask my passengers (whenever it is) to abide is, don't slam the doors during ingress/egress. Be gentle on them.

99% of the time, I am alone in the car so no rules as such for me apart from the one mentioned above.

[petrolHead_1609]

Strict rules :

Nobody touches my music system and AC controls. It's not like I won't adjust, I'll change it as many times as you want but tell me instead of touching around.

No food, drinks in the car. Even something as simple as biscuit is bound to have some granules and pieces left behind and then there's litter. I don't mind stopping somewhere and eat all we want. Rather it's been a customary thing now to have a stop at CCD, Ahmednagar everytime I head to my hometown.

No handprints on windows. I absolutely hate it when people push the window to close the door instead of using door handles.

No touching window controls (mostly with newer set of friends, not with family and closed ones). There are always some odd ducks who would keep opening and closing window for no reason.

I certainly don't lend the car to anyone but family or my inner circle who very well know how would I want the car to be treated. I don't like it, people driving my car over 3k rpm in city, there's no scope of spirited drive in city and then to slow down from such speeds, jerked braking.

One thing for which everyone makes fun of me, including my family is how irritated I get when someone is even a bit hard while closing the door. Many a times I say 'truck ka darwaza band kar rahe ho kya?'

[Raghu M]

This is an interesting thread. My cardinal rules are:

1. Everyone in the car has to buckle up. Once a friend of mine argued and I had to let him out of the car without giving him the drop. This applies to the rear passengers as well. I always insist on wearing seat belts

2. DO NOT adjust my seating position: - I have been pretty blunt with the mechanics and service personnel not to alter my existing driving stance/position. It is a sweet spot and I do not like anyone tampering/changing it

3. No service center stickers please - I always insist that no service center folks be allowed to advertise through my windshield or the headlights. My windshield has just two stickers, one the FASTag and the other is the tiny company parking permit. The headlights do not have any stickers (I rarely use my high beam). I find it annoying to have multiple stickers of the wheel alignment, service centers displayed on my car

4. No coins in the car. I do not like the noise of any loose bolt or nut while driving. I am very allergic to any noise in the car. That could be rattles or anything else. Hence, I do not keep change/keys of my flat in the car. It is always in a bag that does not make any noise.

[BlackPearl]

Nice thread! I had a lot of rules when I had a Palio and then a Baleno. No smoking, no drinking, no food etc. But slowly I realised that it was getting stressful. Once I bought a Bolero and eventually a Thar, all rules went out of the window. But recently after getting the Range Rover Sport, those traits are slowly coming back and I have already started feeling the tension with co-passengers!

[fhdowntheline]

Here are my rules:
1) Everyone buckles up, especially on out-of-city trips for rear pax (usually my parents). My wife has now, after so many years of reminding, started to wear the seatbelt on her own as I fire up the car.
2) I hate it when small bags containing water, dry food etc are kept in the rear seat.They inevitably end up creating a mess after a journey.
3) As others mentioned, I get to fiddle around with the touch screen audio controls. Because if my wife tries to do it, she inevitably fumbles, and then I have to look at the screen anyway. It doesnt help that the Honda City has one of the least intuitive and responsive touchscreens.
4) I hate arguments over finding directions, especially when we have lost our way a bit. I am generally confident that Google will help. My father believes in human intelligence, i.e, asking people.
5) I am sometimes a bit too concerned about occasional unusual vibrations/rattles while driving. Interestingly, I get these quite a bit on the supposedly solid Polo GT and not at all on the supposedly tinny Honda City.

[GTO]

Excellent thread! My rules as follows:

- No eating in the car. I'm very firm about this. Will stop by the road if you are hungry and we can snack outside.

- Smoking? I don't mind it at all. Even though I quit 2 years back, I love the aroma.

- Music remains my choice.

- Buckling up is mandatory for rear passengers on the highway.

- When the rev needle touches the red zone, please stop talking to me as I'm enjoying / focusing on the drive . I actually don't like continuous yapping on long drives. Would prefer to focus on the car + road + music.

- 1 medium-sized bag per passenger for a road-trip. Yeah, I know I myself don't travel light, but hey, it's my car!

Related Threads:

Our responsibility as passengers

Passenger napping?

[Eddy]

Another related thread

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...-you-hate.html (Will ya stop that!! Passenger habits that you hate!)

[ABHI_1512]

Super thread, we all have some set rules for our cars I am sure. Not much different from the original post but I am surely finicky about some things:

1. Absolutely no smoking in the car because no matter what you do, the ash will find some way to get inside the car.

2. All the occupants must use the seat belts no matter what, specially on the highways and including the rear seat belts. No sitting in the car without the belts and strictly no kids on the front seat.

3. Who doesn’t want a clean car? In my pursuit, even the kids who accompany us have come to know which foot to place on the mat first. Keeps the carpet cleaning routine at bay for a useful time.

4. Little Knick knacks sort of food can be done but clumsy eating is strictly forbidden. Leaves a pretty darn awful smelling car and I resent that totally.

I have been maintaining these little points since long but then as the days are passing by, the cleanliness bug is getting stronger and folks around me are getting flustered.

[AMKAM]

Some of my "guidelines" ( rules seems too strict a word) -
1) Front seat passenger cannot sleep. On long drives, particularly after lunch, everyone in the car tends to snooze. My co-passenger in front has to be the one who can stay awake..atleast till someone else has had his/her snooze and can be a replacement.
2) On long drives, the first song played on the music system HAS to be a favourite aarti of mine which I always keep on my phone or on my car usb drive.
3) Like many of you, no drinks or wet snacks at all ! Dry snacks & sweets are difficult to avoid, particularly with a kid in the car.
4) No smoking at all.

[KarthikK]

I think when travelling with just the better halves in tow, they will have got used to most of the driver's quirks over time and those never happen after a few years, so I'll just highlight on the occasional passengers such as friends who sometimes share the ride on those rare group trips

Most of the points have already been covered by other members, just two things I would like to add, done by these occasional friend passengers which annoy me:

- Misplacing / disposing fuel bills or (multiple entry) toll tickets in random places and when I need to show that at the next toll plaza, there is some fidgeting around, which I hate. This is largely reduced nowadays after the FASTag era began though.

- I don't allow food as such inside, but sometimes the occasional passenger will chew gum or pop a mouth freshener and leave that wrapper in some door pocket or cup holder. I have a small portable dustbin in the back row and would prefer it if they use that, instead of finding their own DIY dustbin areas which I have to clean up later after the trip

[Jeroen]

I don’t have many rules, but here goes:

1) Seat belts for all mandatory (its a legal requirement and has been for decades here in Europe so that isn’t a thing.

2) No smoking. Not many of our friends/family smoke so I can’t even begin to remember when I had to ask somebody not to smoke

3) Nobody talks through the news on the car radio!
I have an argument with my wife just about every single drive. As soon as the news comes on, she will start asking questions/commenting. It drives me nuts. Wait till the news is over, before discussing the news!

When it comes to food, drinks etc I am ok with most of that. I would like to think most of my friends/family are reasonably well behaved people, so they will be careful. Here in Europe when you stop at a petrol station for food, you will end up with sandwiches, so not to bad.

When we take one of our classic cars for a long drive or a holiday, first I load up the boot with tools and spare parts. What space is left can be used for luggage. (Which usually leaves my wife with the glove compartment!)

The one thing I would be cautious about is food that really smells. I will go and pick up take away food only with the company car for that matter!

I am good with anybodies music too. Happy to listen to something I am not familiar with.

Jeroen

[balenoed_]

Looks like I am bit generous here comparatively. I do not care on whatever the passengers have to do - music/no music, smoking/drinking, A/C off/on, windows up/down, seat belt on/off, sitting/jumping.. etc.

All I politely refuse is to hand over the steering. Not because they ain't good drivers, just because the car is quite old and we are so attached that I have a feeling the car won't listen to anyone else's commands. Possessive? No, Just in the interest of everyone's safety.

[kozhissery]

Per-se, I don't have much rules


- Buckling up is mandatory for all passengers on the long drives.

- Music - either my iPod is connected or the usual FM stations

- Eating - I'm ok with it unless it is too messy

- Bag - No preference

- Sleeping in front seat - I don't care - as my with family it is always like that (usually my drives are in the night or early morning)

- Smoking - NO

[Shreyans_Jain]

Strict rules:

1. Nobody touch the windscreen or windows. Especially when they fog up. Wait for the defogger to do its job. I keep all glass clean by personally scrubbing with Colin and newspaper. Don’t need anyone’s oily paws to leave marks.

2. No hanging of newspapers etc on the windows to block the sun. My need as the driver to get a quick view out during crossings or intersections supersedes your wish to keep the sun out. Nowadays, our Hexa with its factory fit sunblinds have rendered this conflict moot.

3. Everyone belts up. This is a big conflict point, especially with the rear seat passengers. But I insist for highway drives.

4. Baby travels in the car seat. My daughter is 7 months old and is very comfortable with her car seat. We have done 700km in a day with the baby, easy peasy. My folks however don’t get the point. For them, baby travels in the lap. Doesn’t matter. For anything more than a run to the nearby market, car seat is mandatory.

5. No milk products. A thermos of cold coffee once leaked inside my City and it seeped into the carpet. The stench remained unbearable for months. No amount of washing with water or soap could get rid of it. Since then, no cold coffees, no milkshakes, no rasmalaais, nothing. Also, food with strong odour like aachar is discouraged.

6. No smoking.