What Riles Drivers Most

A poll confirms what most drivers already knew: Driving can be a pain in the you know what. The results reveal just which irritants rankle the most.

At the top of drivers’ pet peeves list, as revealed in the LendingTree survey, sits texting while driving, a practice that’s illegal in most states but that happens nonetheless.

More than half of drivers who acknowledge having pet peeves on the road – and 92% say they have them – point to texting drivers as the worst of them. The most common peeving offense among respondents who admitted to committing them is, you guessed it, texting while driving.

“Texting while driving is deadly and inexcusable,” says LendingTree auto insurance specialist Rob Bhatt. “In the amount of time it takes to send a note or check your screen, you can miss seeing cars stopped in unexpected freeway traffic in front of you or a worker on the side of the road. It’s 100% avoidable.”

The poll found the second- and third-ranking pet peeves are driving slowly in a passing lane, 44%, and drivers who block fellow travelers from merging, 41%.

Perhaps ironically, 27% of poll respondents say they themselves are innocent of such trespasses.

Irritating other drivers can of course have consequences. The study found the unsurprising fact that driving can raise people’s dander.

Half of respondents said they’ve experienced what they consider road rage, and half of those said it moved them to drive aggressively. Traffic tempers were more common among men – 56% versus 43% of women, and especially among the youngest drivers – 62% of generation Z drivers and 59% of millennial ones.

The poll revealed other interesting road habits and prejudices. For more detail, visit the test results page.

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