00:00
All right, real talk here. You think that you're a good driver, right? Yeah. Well, so does everyone
00:08
else. But today, we're breaking down why that's total BS and exposing the bad habits we all
00:16
pretend don't actually count. You know, buckle up, buttercup. This one's going to get real.
00:22
Hey, what's happening? How are you doing today? Thank you so much for being here. I am Chris,
00:37
and yeah, this is Cool Cars with Chris Mann, and I love cool cars. I love cars. I love
00:45
driving. I love driving so much that it's actually my regular day job career. I'm on
00:52
the road quite a bit. I mean, for work, I mean, of course, getting to work too. But being on
00:58
the road so much, I have seen a lot of different things. I've seen a lot of people make stupid
01:04
decisions driving. I've seen a lot of people get into accidents that really shouldn't have
01:08
gotten into accidents. And you know, just as well as I do, that if you drive on an
01:13
American road, a lot of people swear they are great drivers and they never do anything
01:20
wrong. It's always somebody else's fault. You always hear like all those stupid drivers
01:25
out there. Everyone's stupid. All those dumb drivers. Watch out for all the dumb drivers
01:29
out there. But let me ask you a question. Be honest here. How good of a driver are
01:36
you really? Like let's just say on a scale of I should be a NASCAR to I can't parallel
01:44
park, even if there's like a full school bus length worth of room to park your car. Now,
01:52
if you were to say like, say eight, nine or 10, well, congratulations. You're like 80
02:01
to 90% of American drivers because according to multiple studies, almost everyone, and
02:07
I mean everyone thinks they're better than average, which well, if you think about
02:13
the math on that, that's actually impossible. Yeah. Well, we can't all be above average.
02:21
That's not how averages actually work. Listen, I'm no math was, but at least I know that.
02:27
So it's cute that we all try, right? But what really goes into the psychology behind
02:35
thinking we're all great drivers? We can't all be great drivers. Have you ever heard
02:42
of illusion superiority? No. Well, it's not some kind of Marvel villain, although it probably
02:49
should be. It's a psychological effect where people tend to overestimate their own abilities
02:56
compared to others, especially when it comes to doing things like driving. You know, there
03:05
was a study like a long time ago. The one I found was from 1981 way back in the day, but
03:13
basically even back then, it showed that 93% of American drivers rated themselves as better
03:21
than average. Now, if you fast forward to today, a study shared by the Lawrence Berkeley
03:28
Center said 80% of daily drivers that over 80% of daily drivers think they're good or not
03:38
only good, but they're great drivers. Now, meanwhile, almost every traffic report says
03:44
that the roads have basically become, you know, and I know a freaking war zone out
03:51
here. So who's lying? Chances are it's probably all of us. Now, the funny thing or weird thing
04:00
or ironic thing, I guess, is that we think we're the exception. I mean, you know, we've
04:07
all done it, right? We're sitting in traffic thinking everybody else is an idiot today.
04:12
Oh my gosh, I'm driving and look at that idiot over there, cut me off. Look at that
04:17
idiot over there driving without his headlights on. Look at that idiot over there in the wrong
04:22
lane has his turn signal on and it's been on for like five miles. Is he ever going to
04:28
turn into that lane? Probably not. And my biggest pet peeve with people now, this is
04:33
probably maybe goes to mechanics and bad driving too, is when their car suddenly
04:39
has an issue and they need to pull over to the side of the road, to the right
04:44
side of the road. But for some God awful unknown reason, they decide that I think
04:50
parking my car in the middle of the freaking freeway is a good spot to just
04:54
break down. When you know your car is breaking down, you can feel it shudder.
04:58
You can feel something going on. You feel something going on. It's something
05:01
wrong with your car. And you don't think that I'm going to use these like
05:05
10 seconds before the car completely dies to start moving over to the right,
05:09
getting out of the way. No, I'm going to park it right here in the freeway.
05:11
Yeah, that kind of stuff. And yet all of us, and I mean all of us, when we get to a
05:18
stop sign, what do you do if nobody's there? Well, you kind of do a yield.
05:23
You kind of roll through a California stop, as they say. You basically say,
05:27
well, hey, you know, I looked both ways. Nobody's coming and I can just
05:31
cruise on through. It happens all the time. Or here's another one we all
05:36
do. You tailgate somebody and you think, I'm just going to give them
05:40
just a gentle suggestion to move, like move out of my way. But when someone else
05:46
rides your bumper, oh, what is this guy's problem? I'm going to break check this
05:50
guy. You know, it's kind of funny how we all think we are amazing drivers.
05:54
Like we are the best driver on the road out here today. But you know,
05:59
it's funny. It's that it's not always true. And you know, and I know it
06:03
that we think we're the best. But unfortunately, there are some of us
06:08
that don't even use your turn signals. And if you drive on these American
06:12
highways as much as I have, and if you have been driving for a while,
06:16
you probably know that people do get aggravated very easily when things
06:21
happen. But the real question is, why do we get so mad behind the
06:27
wheel of all places? Why is there road rage? Where does this come from?
06:33
What are you so angry about? Why does this happen?
06:36
So the AAA foundation found that 96% of drivers admit to doing
06:44
something aggressive behind the wheel in the past year.
06:49
Holy crap, 90. It's almost all of us. 96% is almost everybody
06:54
has done something aggressive behind the wheel in the past year.
06:59
Now, that's not just a few people. That's just not a like one guy
07:04
here, one girl there, one guy there doing it or whatever.
07:08
That is almost everybody. That is like almost everybody that drives
07:12
today in the United States has had some serious aggression behind the wheel.
07:19
Now, we've all been out there. We've all been driving behind
07:23
the crazies and we've seen it happen. We've seen lots of videos
07:26
on social media where people park. They get out of their cars
07:30
and they go fist to fist and they start fighting. And in some
07:34
serious cases, it actually leads to like death, fatality or
07:39
murder with guns being drawn out and crazy knives and things
07:42
like that. These things can escalate very, very quickly.
07:47
But why does this happen? Why do we get so angry? Why are we
07:51
so upset? We are very, very upset on the road more than any
07:56
other place in the world. And I guess it kind of makes sense if
08:00
you think about it because, well, first off, you believe that
08:05
you're a good driver, right? You believe that you are the best
08:08
driver on the road. I mean, of course you are, right? It's
08:11
you. You're the good driver, obviously, right? Yeah. And
08:15
because you believe you're a good driver, you also are
08:19
using your car to get somewhere. You're using your
08:22
vehicle as a means of transportation. You have to get
08:26
somewhere and you are definitely in a hurry to get there.
08:30
You've got place to go. Time is money, baby. We got to get going
08:33
here. I got time for this nonsense. We gots to go and
08:37
you're focused. I get it. You're locked in. You got to get
08:40
to where you got to go. You are driving. You are in a
08:43
zone, a zone of you driving down the road, going to your
08:47
place, the place you got to be in your car. It's you
08:52
moving to your next destination. And then as you're cruising
08:56
along in your zone of driving, someone has the nerve to drive
09:01
up behind you, cuts in front of you without even signaling,
09:04
cuts you off. How dare they? And then your blood pressure
09:09
spikes. You go from calm to combat in three seconds
09:14
flat. You honk at them. You flip them off. You yell
09:18
stupid driver. You're such an idiot. Learn how to
09:21
drive. And he gets so mad. But why? Why are you so angry? Why?
09:29
Well, it's because for some reason, all of us do this. It's
09:35
because we actually take driving very personally. Now let
09:41
me say that again. We take driving personally. It's our
09:47
car. It's our cool car. If you have a cool car, it's our
09:52
space. It's our control. And when someone breaks the
09:58
rules, we see it as an attack on our competence. But the
10:03
sad truth is, is that even though, I mean, I mean,
10:08
let's be real here, we've all been that guy at some
10:13
point. And that is a very hard thing to admit. And have you
10:18
ever been driving down the road and somebody's honking at
10:21
you, flipping you off, doing something crazy, you're like
10:23
wondering like, what did I do? I just drive it in my lane,
10:27
just minding my own thing, listening to my favorite
10:29
podcast, which hopefully cool cars with Chris, which
10:32
hopefully you're listening to right now while you're
10:34
driving. And you just cruise it along and someone's
10:36
getting mad at you. You're like, what did I even
10:38
do? Now there are some mistakes as drivers. We don't
10:43
even know we're actually making. And this is where it
10:46
gets a little interesting because we're talking
10:49
about mistakes that we make that we don't even know
10:53
we're actually making. Now you're probably thinking
10:55
that you're a great driver, you know all the
10:56
rules, you ace the test, you know what inside and
10:59
out, you've been driving for years, you know
11:02
everything about driving, you can probably teach
11:03
anybody how to drive, you know, because you've
11:06
been doing it so long, you're so great at it. But
11:09
this is where it gets a little sneaky. Most of the
11:12
bad driving out there, you know, it's not from
11:15
drunk people or 16 year olds, you know, learning
11:18
how to drive, you know, the first time doing
11:21
anything. It's us, regular experienced drivers who
11:27
just have, well, we've gotten a little lazy.
11:30
That's what it is. We're all lazy. And we're
11:34
also lazy with confidence. So we're very
11:38
overconfident as a driver. So I guess you'd call
11:41
that lazy confidence. That's a new coin. I'm going
11:45
to coin that one. Lazy confident person. That'll
11:47
be my new nickname as a driver, I guess, lazy
11:50
confidence. And here are some signs you can
11:53
tell whether somebody is a lazy, confident
11:56
driver. One is rolling stop signs. Do you do
12:00
a California roll? Do you come to the
12:02
stop sign and say, it's good. Nobody's here.
12:05
Cruise on through. Here I go. Let me keep on going.
12:08
That is one sign. Another is riding in the
12:12
left lane, like it's your own personal
12:15
driveway. Yeah, I mean, I seem to go super
12:19
slow. And I seem to go really fast. In fact,
12:22
one time when I was 16 years old, I was
12:24
taking my friends up to Disneyland for a
12:26
Disneyland getaway thing for a, I think
12:29
it was a sports thing or something like
12:31
that. Anyways, I'm driving up there and I
12:34
didn't know about the freeway system that
12:36
well. I wasn't very confident as a driver,
12:38
because I was only 16. And I remember that
12:41
to ensure I didn't get thrown off on any
12:44
unusual like freeway exits or get lost, I
12:48
pretty much stuck to the fast lane the
12:50
entire time driving up there, the far
12:53
left lane. And I remember as I was
12:55
driving back home, this car came up
12:57
behind me. And he was honking at me and
13:02
shining as flashing his lights at me and
13:04
going really crazy and telegating me. And
13:06
here I am a 16-year-old new driver. And I
13:09
didn't know what to do. I was kind of
13:10
panicked. Everybody else was kind of
13:11
chill in the car. I was late at night.
13:12
And I was like, what do I do? Like, what
13:14
do I do? And it turns out, I guess I
13:17
was going slower than the guy wanted
13:20
to be in the fast lane. He wanted to
13:22
go much faster. And I'm going slower.
13:24
And it was at night, so I couldn't really
13:26
see very well flashing lights and all
13:28
this stuff. So I just stood in my ground.
13:30
I stayed in one place. And as the guy got
13:33
around me, of course he honked and flipped
13:34
me off and he kept on going. And here I
13:36
am a scared little 16-year-old learning
13:38
how to drive. Just got my license, you
13:41
know, trying to navigate long distance
13:44
driving versus like being in town on a
13:46
freeway. And I totally get it when
13:48
people want to be in the fast lane
13:50
and they want to go as fast as they
13:51
want nobody to be in the way. And he
13:54
easily could have gotten around me
13:55
and eventually he did. But the fact
13:57
that I was in the fast lane and he
13:59
thought it was his own personal like
14:02
runway, his personal driveway, and I was
14:04
like stopping him from going like 90
14:06
or 100. I don't know how fast I was
14:08
going at the time, but it was probably
14:10
around the speed limit I guess. And this
14:12
guy didn't want to go the speed limit.
14:13
He wanted to go extremely fast.
14:15
Some other things we do is we
14:18
change lanes without signaling. Now
14:21
this seems to piss me off. People do
14:22
this. I always do this. I just like
14:24
try to always do this. But people do it.
14:26
Like, how do I know which lane you're
14:28
going to go in if you don't use your
14:30
turn signal? That's how accidents
14:32
happen. I tell two people like butt
14:34
into each other. They'll try to share
14:36
the same lane at the same time. And
14:38
that's what happens. But listen,
14:40
turn your turn signal on before you
14:43
start turning. Not during, not after.
14:46
Like it matters to that point. Of
14:48
course, speeding. Of course, something
14:50
we all do. Like speeding a little
14:52
because I know how to handle it. Like I
14:55
am the professional driver. My BMW can
14:58
go 120 miles an hour. No problem though.
15:01
In traffic, swerving around cars. I know
15:04
what I'm doing because I'm a
15:06
professional. Because I drive a BMW.
15:08
Hello. Of course, we all think we're
15:10
amazing. And of course, the big one
15:13
out there I see today. It seems like
15:17
in traffic at red lights because
15:19
we're all guilty of this. Everybody,
15:21
you cannot say you're not guilty of
15:23
this one. And that is looking at your
15:26
phone while you're in traffic. And
15:28
looking at your phone while you're at
15:30
a red light. Everybody does it. We
15:33
all do that. And I think when we're
15:36
not doing it and we see somebody else
15:38
do it, you know, we get a little mad.
15:40
We get a little angry. We're like,
15:41
how dare you? Look at you on your
15:42
phone. Yet the very next sign of
15:45
traffic, the very next stoplight you
15:46
get to, you're pulling your phone
15:48
out. You're checking Facebook. You're
15:50
checking whatever. You're checking
15:51
different things. I get it. I mean,
15:53
we've all done it. But did you know
15:56
that human error contributes to
15:59
around 90% of crashes? It's not like,
16:04
say, you know, bad road conditions.
16:07
It's not, say, bad luck. It's not
16:09
the boogeyman. It's not the other
16:11
guy. It's us. Because we still say
16:16
we're a quote, unquote, good
16:19
driver. So yeah, the stats don't lie.
16:24
We're overconfident,
16:25
under aware, and we're just often
16:27
winging it out there. I mean, one hand
16:29
on our coffee, one hand on our phone,
16:32
our knee steering the steering wheel.
16:34
I get it. I totally do. But hey,
16:37
I'm not here to roast you. I'm not
16:39
here to bash you. I'm not here to
16:40
tell you that you're a horrible
16:42
crappy driver out there in the
16:44
roads and you'd never drive again.
16:46
I'm not saying that at all. I'm
16:48
roasting all of us. We all need to
16:51
work on this, myself included.
16:53
Although I pride myself as a great
16:56
driver, I know I'm not. I know I make
16:58
mistakes. And the reason why I know I
17:00
make mistakes, because you out there
17:03
have told me that. You out there have
17:05
honked at me. You out there have
17:06
flipped me off. You out there have
17:08
said I'm a bad driver. But I'm
17:11
always trying to learn. I'm always
17:13
trying to improve. I'm always trying
17:14
to make sure I get to my
17:15
destination safely, efficiently. And
17:19
I know that I make mistakes. And I know
17:22
I'm not perfect. And I know that the
17:25
driving roads out there in the
17:27
United States can be treacherous. And
17:30
I know that not everybody out there
17:32
is on their A game. And I know. But
17:36
there are some things you can do to
17:38
defend yourself as a driver. One
17:41
simple thing you can do is give
17:43
yourself enough space cushion around
17:46
you that no clown is going to get
17:50
close enough to you. If someone's coming
17:51
towards you, you figure out a way to
17:55
get a gap between you and that person.
17:58
Basically, steer clear of them, especially
18:00
in the rain. If it's raining outside,
18:02
it's really pouring down. I absolutely
18:05
hate to be next to somebody on the
18:08
freeway. I will make sure I go out of
18:10
my way, slowing, fast, wherever it's
18:12
got to be to get away from somebody. I
18:14
do not want to be side by side next to
18:17
a car running down the freeway at 65
18:20
miles an hour, maybe even 70 miles an
18:21
hour in the rain because that's a
18:23
spin-outs happen. And when they spin
18:25
out and lose control, they hit that
18:27
puddle because they always do, they're
18:29
going to fishtail and they're going
18:30
to slide left to right. And if you
18:32
are right next to them, they're going
18:34
to collide into you. So to stay away
18:38
from bad drivers is simply just stay
18:40
away from bad drivers. And I know it
18:42
can't always happen with traffic and
18:44
things like that or the way the roads
18:46
are. I understand not every situation
18:49
is perfect, not every road condition
18:51
is perfect, not every traffic pattern
18:52
is perfect. Not everybody on the road
18:56
is perfect. And I want to say thank
18:58
you so much for listening all the way
19:01
to the very end of this episode. And
19:03
if you enjoyed this, which I hope you
19:05
did, please hit follow or subscribe
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19:10
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19:41
Everything you possibly want, including
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social media, everything is right
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there at the wonderful world of
19:47
coolcarswithchris.com. And until next
19:50
time, happy driving. Be safe.
19:52
You know, tame that anger. Listen,
19:55
everybody makes mistakes driving,
19:57
including that guy right over there
19:59
and you too, possibly. So until next
20:02
time, I'll catch you on the very
20:03
next episode and be safe, drive
20:06
legal and I'll see you later.
