Don’t get us wrong — driving can be a whole lotta fun, and we’d much rather have a vehicle in our lives than not have a vehicle in our lives. But still, we’re not going to pretend that absolutely everything about driving is amazing. It’s not. There are some aspects of driving that can be stressful, headache-inducing, or simply things that we could do without.
With that in mind, we thought it’d be a good idea to round up some of these stressful elements, as well as offer some handy tips for eliminating them (or at least for reducing their impact).
High Gas Prices
Gas prices are always fluctuating, but really, does it ever feel like they’re as low as we’d like them to be? Not in our book. On average, Americans pay more than $200 on gas each month, which is fine if you have a fat bank balance, but if you don’t, well, you’re gonna notice the expense. The fact that we’re usually just driving to work, rather than on a fun road trip, makes it all the more annoying.
Can you bring down gas prices? Probably not. But you can figure out where the cheapest gas in your area is, and also change your driving style to be more MPG-friendly, which will extend the time between trips to the pump.
Boring Commutes
Driving should be fun, but all too often, we find that the majority of our time behind the wheel is spent going to and from work. And that might be a novelty at first, but after years and years of doing the same old route, things can get a little bit old. Actually, they can get very old.
You could ask your boss if you could work remotely, and thus cut out the boring commute altogether, but what if that’s not an option? In that case, finding an alternative route, one that has less traffic and — dare we say — even a few nice views could do the trick. Even if it takes more time, it’s worth it for your sanity. Add an interesting podcast or your favorite playlist to the mix, and you’ll be having a grand old time.
Paying for Expensive Repairs
You’ll love your car when it’s working as it’s supposed to, but when it’s not? That makes it a little harder to love. You can’t always avoid expensive repairs — for example, if you’re in a car accident — but in many cases, you can control how much you spend on repairs. It all has to do with how committed you are to proactive maintenance. Looking after your car ahead of time can help prevent a wide range of issues that will be a lot more expensive to fix when they’re more pronounced.
Forgetting Where You Parked
A fun day out will quickly become a lot less fun if you’ve forgotten where you parked. OK, actually that’s not true. It’ll be fun at first, especially if you’re with your friends. But at some point, it’ll stop being funny and start being more of the opposite, especially if you have somewhere to be. One smart way to get around this is to install a GPS tracker in your vehicle. This will make it easy to locate your car no matter how busy the area is/how forgetful you are, and can also help lower your insurance premiums. It’s a win-win, basically.
Lost Keys
Thought that temporarily losing your car because you forgot where you were parked was bad? Imagine looking at your car, touching your car, but being unable to drive your car all because you’ve lost the keys. At least with your car, you can spot it from a mile away. Car keys can be difficult to locate, and if you lost them while you were outside of the house then it’s unlikely that they’ll ever turn up, at least not in time for you to get to work the following day. In that case, a company like Locksmith Savers can help. Locksmiths can get you out of a ‘lost keys’ emergency, though it can also be useful to work with them ahead of time to make a copy of your keys. That way, you’ll always have some spares handy.
Parking Tickets
We have enough car-related expenses to deal with — allocating even more of our cash to something as annoying as a parking ticket is enough to have us considering putting our vehicle up for sale. OK, we wish that we could offer some handy tips on how to get out of paying for a parking ticket, but we can’t. Unless you can prove that it’s an obvious error on their behalf, you’ll likely be paying it. The best way to avoid this issue? Sorry we can’t offer better advice, but it’s simply: read the parking rules for the space before you leave your car there.
Other Drivers
Oh, how nice it would be to drive with no one else on the roads! Actually, that’d probably be strange since it would indicate we were living in some post-apocalyptic wasteland, but you get our point. Other drives suck, or at least can do. From merging when they should be merging to engaging in bad habits or simply just looking as if they were never shown how to drive properly, other drivers can make our blood boil.
So, what do you do? You can either take out a television advertisement to educate the whole population on correct driving etiquette…or you can just let it go. In the end, getting angry at another driver has no impact other than getting you mad.
High Car Insurance Costs
Paying more than $2000 a year for anything is annoying, but for car insurance? Ouch. You’ll need to have insurance, but you probably don’t need to be spending that much. If your insurance expenses are making you cry, then shop around for a better deal. You’d be surprised at how much you can save just by doing a little bit of work.