Do you hate to drive? Here’s what you can do

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/04/2015 (3810 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I once had an assignment that asked me, among other things, to recommend cars to people who hate to drive.

Naturally, as someone who loves to drive, it was hard to put on the hat of someone from the polar opposite of the same emotion. What defines hatred of driving? And as Top Gear once pointed out, if you hate to drive, you’re probably pretty bad at doing it.

I think Top Gear‘s former host Jeremy Clarkson almost nailed it without even knowing. These people probably hate to drive because they’re bad at it. I mean, how often have you been stuck behind some slowpoke only to, eventually, pull beside the car and realize the driver has got the steering wheel in a death grip, a really nervous look on the face and droplets of blood forming on a vein-popping forehead? (Note: none of these things is good!)

Your anger almost turned to pity, didn’t it?

If that’s the case, if hating to drive is a function of a lack of confidence doing it, then there are some things you can do to overcome. The first is finding a good driving school. There are a few that operate across Canada, some of which operate travelling road shows to take their message across the land. Check the websites of the performance-oriented brands (Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz). You might find one near you. Sometimes the local dealer will know of a good school. Finally, a local sports-car club might be your ticket. These will often run autocross races, and as part of the indoctrination process, hold schools in autocrossing.

I’m not saying these schools will be cheap, but if driving is an integral part of your daily existence, it’s a small price to pay to learn how to do it well. You wouldn’t dig in to a three-phase, high-voltage transformer or perform an appendectomy without pretty extensive training, right?

It’s important to choose a school properly. There are plenty of schools focused on merely getting the unlicensed licensed. These may confuse the issue and worsen your problem. Find a school that uses former and current automotive racers. Find one that teaches vision, car control, braking, collision avoidance and slide recovery.

When shopping, be sure to ask the right questions: 1. What is power-on oversteer and what is the correction? (It’s when your rear wheels lose traction because you’ve applied too much power. Fix: look where you want the car to go and ease up on the accelerator. Your hands will almost automatically point the wheel in the right direction and the easing of power will let the rear wheels lock up again.) 2. What are the four ways to transfer weight? (1. Braking. 2. Releasing the accelerator. 3. Pressing the accelerator, 4. Steering.) Any instructor that can’t answer these question isn’t worthy of teaching you.

These schools will give you the tools you need to hit the road with enough confidence to succeed but enough humility to survive.

Let’s say for the sake of argument you aren’t a bad driver, but you still don’t like it. What should you drive?

A 1986 Ford Tempo.

Hey, if you’re going to immerse yourself in an emotion as intense as hatred, you may as well go all the way! Cue Eugene Levy: “You think you hate it now, but wait till you drive it!”

All sarcasm aside, there are a few modern cars I’d recommend for those who hate to drive. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with these cars, but they do seem to speak to some of the reasons people often profess as why they don’t like driving: hating to parallel park, being overwhelmed by the car’s gadgetry and difficulty placing the car in position.

First off would be any car you like that has a rear camera. Second, would be a car with a hood that falls away from the windshield, either a minivan like the Toyota Sienna or Dodge Caravan or a compact such as the Honda Fit. The camera will help you see when backing up and the hood will help you see when to stop pulling forward. Rear cameras have become standard equipment on enough cars that finding one should not be difficult.

The next consideration, particularly if parallel parking is such a bugaboo, is a car that parks itself. I first saw one, a Prius, at Toyota’s test track outside Tokyo in 2003. Now, even Ford has a few, including the Escape, Flex, Focus and Lincoln MKS and MKT. The Ford system will not only park for you, it will also tell you when you’re at a spot where you’ll fit. The system is optional.

Here’s how it works: you’re driving along a column of cars, on Hargrave Street, perhaps. You activate the Active Park function and it will tell you when it’s found a spot. It then tells you when to stop, when to shift, when to go and when to shift and go again. You control the speed and the brake, but the electronics handle the wheel.

The other consideration is reliability. There are two ways to make an educated guess here: First, Google JD Power Initial Quality Survey. This is a catchall survey of new-car buyers who report “problems” within the first 90 days. It covers everything from going back to the dealer to ask a question about a feature to more serious problems requiring diagnosis and repair. Cars that rank highly here are better in a variety of ways, including a good owner’s manual, easy-to-understand features and initial reliability.

The second is to look up resale-value projections for the cars you are interested in buying. A higher resale value reflects higher demand for your car when it becomes ‘used’. That demand is driven in large part by realistic expectations of higher long-term quality. It’s why the market fell out very quickly on Suzuki Swifts but remains strong on Honda Civics. (www.canadianblackbook.com)

Maybe you hate to drive because of the nattering of the person riding shotgun? Sorry, you’re on your own there.