Survey Finds Most In-Car Fights Caused by Directions

We’ve covered the dangers of texting while driving, and how distracting kids can be in the car. But here’s another serious concern we’d like to address: bickering couples.

Arguing and driving – it’s sometime hard to separate the two in the car, especially when it comes to spouses. A British survey conducted by car accessories retailer Halfords says that than 70 percent of drivers admit to being involved in some sort of in-car argument in the last month and 18 percent confessed they have in-car fights at least once a week. In the US, drivers fair a bit better – navigation software producer TeleNav did a similar survey and found that 55 percent of respondents reported being involved in arguments while driving.

In the Halfords study, 65 percent said that the fights started because of the other person’s poor navigation skills. And here’s a no-brainer – 80 percent of the women polled complained that their partners never looked at the directions before hand, while 85 percent argued because of the driver’s refusal to ask for directions once they got lost.

And we’re not so different on this side of the pond. The TeleNav survey found that the most common reason for road rage between couples was due to opposing views on how to get to a location and refusing to ask for directions. To add insult to injury, 17 percent of respondents accused the other of being a bad driver.

So how do you resolve this issue? Getting a GPS would solve the problem. However, we don’t really have any concrete solutions about how to do away with fights that start because of bad driver accusations. An old saying comes to mind: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.” That is, at least, until you reach you destination, and you don’t have to worry about walking the rest of the way.

[Source: Kicking Tires]