Worst....passenger....ever.....

My wife is the worst road trip passenger ever... I drive 35,000 ish miles a year for work so my truck is kinda like my second home. The truck is new, no need to slam the door to get it closed but she manages to do this every time I'm getting my son out of his car seat so get a nice pop in my ear drum.

Radio volume is apparently the devil, anything over 4 (the volume goes up to 50) is met with a "turn it down, it's too loud!". 4 is just loud enough to hear the song but sometimes struggle to decipher the lyrics.

The worst part is her imaginary brakes. I don't follow too close when I drive by myself but I intentionally stay further back when she's in the car to no avail. If the car 10 lengths in front of me touches the breaks she's pressing hard on those imaginary brakes and grabbing the door handle in a death grip. Many times this is accompanied by an "oh God" or some other dramatic phrase indicating how terrified she is.

If a trip is scheduled to take 6 hrs of drive time I plan on 10. Add an hour (or more many times) because there's no way we're leaving at the planned time. Add 1 to 1.5 hours to stop for dinner (yes you read correctly, stop for dinner) and then add a potty break every hour. This time around it's even worse as she's pregnant with twins so we stop even more frequently.

Well at least we only have 2 more trips until the doc shuts her travel down. Can't wait to travel with her and the twins............

Well when it comes to getting out the door on time I've got a simple strategy I use: If you plan to leave at 8 and know she takes an hour to get ready then say you need to leave at 7 or 630. You know you'll be on track with your internal schedule despite her running late as usual. Hell I do that and mine KNOWS I do that, not always happy about it but understands especially when we NEED to get to where we are going on time. She's usually somewhere between drying her hair or putting on her face right about when I'd be heading out the door according to 'plan'.

On the imaginary brakes I can't speak mainly cause I've never been in the car with you. My father thinks he's gods gift to driving and my sister is too and frankly they downright terrify me half the time between changing lanes without paying attention and him playing with his damned iPhone while doing 80 on a 12 lane highway.

The slamming is annoying but I'd bet it subsides if you mention that vehicles are expensive(and yet ironically 'cheap' these days too) and (assuming cause she is your wife after all) half the truck is hers. Though that being said I know my truck doors don't need a firm hand despite being almost 20 years old, they do have a fair bit of weight behind them so my missus has to put a bit of weight into it, can't imagine it gets much easier when you've got to wrangle a kid in the process. If it bothers you enough then whenever it doesn't hurt to leave the door open while she's mucking about with the kid(s) walk over and close it for her, it'll save the door and her arm.

I wii see your PITA wife and raise you one who does all of the above AND drinks the 9000000000oz sodas when she knows she has a 2oz bladder. Only to increase the amount of bathroom breaks to once every 15 mins or so.

I drink. Makes things easier to stand.

All jokes aside I think most wife's will do things like this in some fashion. I tend into think it's a way to control the situation.

Oh she can have all the control she wants, last thing I want to be doing on a weekend after spending 20 hours driving is spend another x hours driving but she refuses to drive.

I drive about 1,500 miles a month for work right now, so I guess about half of what EuBrew does.

I'm a terrible passenger, especially when my wife is driving. Phantom breaks. Gripping the Oh **** bar. Occasional backseat driving. Frequently I close my eyes until we get to our destination if she's in a hurry.

Part of it is that she is a more aggressive driver than I am. But a lot of it is that don't have any control when I'm not driving.

Dopeybrew said:

I wii see your PITA wife and raise you one who does all of the above AND drinks the 9000000000oz sodas when she knows she has a 2oz bladder. Only to increase the amount of bathroom breaks to once every 15 mins or so.

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I hear you. I will pull off to the service plaza on the turnpike so she can go, and then by the time we get back in the car and pull back onto the turnpike "uhh I already have to go again.". I love her, but dang!

I've had the flip side, been the passenger along with bad drivers. One decided the 4.5 hour drive to a barbershop convention was the appropriate time to tell me about all of his marital problems and how he thought his wife was leaving him (I picked a GREAT weekend to pack my gun in the suitcase. Once I realized I was rooming with a borderline depressed basketcase, that thing got unloaded, disassembled, and hidden in various parts of my suitcase). Coming home from that same convention, different drivers. A 4.5 hour drive ended up taking NINE HOURS because we had to drive 58 on a 65 mph speed limit, and stop halfway to visit their kids. Those were some of the worst examples, but after those, I vowed I would never carpool again, unless I could drive - and then it was on my schedule, at my pace. People are welcome to ride with me, but they better know what they're getting in to.

1) I only stop when the truck needs gas. Usually means a stop every 200-250 miles. Plan accordingly.
2) If it's a long road trip, I am on a mission. That mission is "Get where we need to be". Meals are a grab-and-go. If there's multiple people riding along, we'll stop and go into the restaurant (I hate dealing with drive-through people on a normal basis, I will not confuse them with multiple orders from one car) - but your order is to go and we're back on the road. A bottle of pop, candy bar, and package of beef jerky is a perfectly acceptable meal on a road trip.
3) Again, I only stop ever 4-5 hours. Need something to drink? Better grab it at the stops. But remember, the next stop is at least another 4 hours down the road. Don't overdo it, or you're in for an unpleasant ride until I find my next gas station.


Granted, I've been single for most of recent memory. We'll see how well my rules hold up with the gal I'm seeing now.

Try a wife with ADHD...

She once asked me why I had gas but she didnt.

I told here she didnt shut her mouth long enough to build up the proper pressure... :rockin:


im not married anymore....

My friend is not a great road trip companion. She drives too slowly, but gets car sick if she's not driving. Has to pee frequently, too.

I remember my dad as passenger, with my sister driving. He'd reach over and shift gears when he felt she wasn't doing it right.

I once gave a coworker a ride home. I told her that my clutch was gone (it really was), and that I'd roll really slowly by her house so that she could jump out without my needing to stop the car. That crazy chick actually had her hand on the door, ready to bail when we got near her house.

Rockn_M said:

I drink. Makes things easier to stand.

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Makes for an interesting road trip, no doubt! LOL!

When I was younger, we had identified "the rules of shotgun" on road trips. Never quite wrote them down, but they're pretty close to this:

http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/articles/6-rules-riding-shotgun-long-road-trips

The best I've trained SWMBO to do is #2 on that list. She now understands that when we hit drive-through, she's expected to unwrap my burger nicely in a way I can hold it, hand it to me during a stretch when I don't need to be especially attentive, and be on hold to take care of the trash once I'm done eating. These duties take precedence over her eating.

Everything else, no luck so far!

And you can get it giftwrapped!
http://www.sportys.com/pilotshop/lady-j-adapter-for-little-john-pilot-urinal.html
You're welcome.
Regards, GF.

Adult diapers. You don't have to be a psychopath to wear them on the road!

Homercidal said:

Adult diapers. You don't have to be a psychopath to wear them on the road!

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You don't have to be, but it helps!

My grandfather taught me the rules of the road; We stop when the car needs gas, when grandpa gets hungry, or grandpa needs to use the restroom. That man drove from South Carolina to San Diego California and got there 10 min before he said he would. My uncle gave him hell for years about the time he drove from SC to Michigan and was 6 minutes late. Never let him live it down!

I feel you.

Leaving late -- This drives me nuts. I would rather be 30 minutes early than 1 min. late. For a while I tried setting all our clocks ahead 20 minutes but she figures this out -- I would say, "It's time to leave, let's go" and she would say "Nah, the clocks are fast, we've got time." So now I just tell her we are leaving at X minus the amount of time she is typically late.

Radio -- head phones. Problem solved.

Stopping for food -- we now bring food, snacks and drinks in a cooler. You're hungry? Grab a sammich... we've rolling.

Stopping to pee -- your wife is pregnant with twins? Sorry, I think she wins this one. It's the trade off for you not having to squeeze out a human being -- not to mention two human beings -- through your hoo ha.

My wife is a road trip sleeper. Five minutes after leaving, she's out cold. I enjoy the quiet time and don't typically notice she's awake until half way through telling me a story or asking a question. When I ask get what she's talking about, she gets pissed because I wasn't listening.

She is a trooper in the fact that I prefer camp sites over hotels when the weather permits. I'm cheap and the lack of amenities gets us back on the road earlier.

Make her ride in the back of the truck? !

When I was a kid, my stepdad hated to stop for anything when driving long distance. He even hated stopping for fuel. I really needed to pee once on a trip from Dallas, TX to LA, CA; so instead of stopping, he hands me a coffee can & tells me to pee in that.

As an adult, I want to get where I'm going too, but I'll stop for bathroom breaks, food, and interesting things along the way. Some of you might remember those billboards along the interstate that said "Only 50 more miles to THE THING!" Well it took 20 years, but I finally was able to stop & see "The THING". No, I'm not telling you what it is, you have to go see it for your self. One of these days I'll go see Mammoth Cave too, but that's a destination in & of itself now.
Regards, GF.

EuBrew said:

My wife is the worst road trip passenger ever... Can't wait to travel with her and the twins............

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Maybe you'd be better off without a wife/kids and never travelling with anyone?
When I saw the title of the thread, I thought it was going to be about random airline passengers that are super annoying.
Your wife can't be all bad, you married her, slept with her enough to have children and she hasn't dumped you yet. Maybe she has some other positive qualities you are overlooking?

madscientist451 said:

Maybe you'd be better off without a wife/kids and never travelling with anyone?
When I saw the title of the thread, I thought it was going to be about random airline passengers that are super annoying.
Your wife can't be all bad, you married her, slept with her enough to have children and she hasn't dumped you yet. Maybe she has some other positive qualities you are overlooking?

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She slams his truck door! There is no defense for that action.

Homercidal said:

She slams his truck door! There is no defense for that action.

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For every slammed truck door, a toilet seat remains up. It's natural law.

Repeat offenders risk the dutch oven (in states that still allow it).

Hahaha... The pain is real.

I believe in driving in comfort. I like to drink super big gulp Diet Cokes so when I have to pee I stop. Nothing fancy, a deep bar ditch will do. That's why I like to drive.

When my wife and first started dating, we went on a road trip from Orlando to Key West.

All in all around 7-8 hours depending on how many tiki bars we stop at and if we take Card Sound (love stopping at Alabama Jacks) or US 1 (boring).

We shared the driving, both agreed to appropriate pee breaks and kept the music at a good volume. Great drive.

I knew then I was going to marry this chick.

EuBrew said:

My wife is the worst road trip passenger ever... I drive 35,000 ish miles a year for work so my truck is kinda like my second home. The truck is new, no need to slam the door to get it closed but she manages to do this every time I'm getting my son out of his car seat so get a nice pop in my ear drum.

Radio volume is apparently the devil, anything over 4 (the volume goes up to 50) is met with a "turn it down, it's too loud!". 4 is just loud enough to hear the song but sometimes struggle to decipher the lyrics.

The worst part is her imaginary brakes. I don't follow too close when I drive by myself but I intentionally stay further back when she's in the car to no avail. If the car 10 lengths in front of me touches the breaks she's pressing hard on those imaginary brakes and grabbing the door handle in a death grip. Many times this is accompanied by an "oh God" or some other dramatic phrase indicating how terrified she is.

If a trip is scheduled to take 6 hrs of drive time I plan on 10. Add an hour (or more many times) because there's no way we're leaving at the planned time. Add 1 to 1.5 hours to stop for dinner (yes you read correctly, stop for dinner) and then add a potty break every hour. This time around it's even worse as she's pregnant with twins so we stop even more frequently.

Well at least we only have 2 more trips until the doc shuts her travel down. Can't wait to travel with her and the twins............

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Lemme guess, when she drives, it prolly a car half the size and she'll do 50mph with 2 feet of distance between her and the car in front. She prolly goes through brakes like tic-tacs, and thinks speed limit signs actually mean that is how many seconds she has to get to the next stop.

Am I right?

Ask her if she wants the farm hand.... Jk, but seriously.

Drive the way you want to drive, and tell her if she doesnt like it, she can ride in the back (not sure if you are in a truck or semi) and if that doesnt suffice, then she can stay home.

My wife's only complaint about my driving is my cussing and flipping off of others when they cut me off, slam on the brakes, etc. Im a sh*t magnet....

She, on the other hand, ran into the trashcan backing out the other day, so theres that...

Just drove from Michigan to Florida and back. If there are brake lights a mile up the road, my wife hits the imaginary brake and puts her hands on the dash. Drives me nuts. I chit you not, we were in tight traffic in NC and my wife yelled, "coming in a little hot, aren't you?" as the car in front of me was getting further away from me.

My wife usually just sleeps or reads her phone when I am driving. Even in a snowstorm.

She can't back up with a trailer though. I'm already teaching my young one to do that using our lawn mower and yard trailer. I want her to be able to teach her boyfriend how to do it.

Ridire said:

Just drove from Michigan to Florida and back. If there are brake lights a mile up the road, my wife hits the imaginary brake and puts her hands on the dash. Drives me nuts. I chit you not, we were in tight traffic in NC and my wife yelled, "coming in a little hot, aren't you?" as the car in front of me was getting further away from me.

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You went on a trip with my wife??!!

I have completely worn out the floor mat pressing the imaginary brake in my wife's car. And she gets light headed from all the gasping she does when I'm driving. It all works out.

madscientist451 said:

Maybe you'd be better off without a wife/kids and never travelling with anyone?
When I saw the title of the thread, I thought it was going to be about random airline passengers that are super annoying.
Your wife can't be all bad, you married her, slept with her enough to have children and she hasn't dumped you yet. Maybe she has some other positive qualities you are overlooking?

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I said she was a bad passenger, not a bad wife, big difference. She's got a big "chicken little" streak which contributes to much of the annoying passenger behavior but I'm pretty lucky. She likes beer but she's kinda pissed she can't drink being pregnant and I've started back brewing lately.

The return trip was much better, only 2 hrs longer than GPS said it would take so that's progress. We'll see how this weekend goes.

EuBrew said:

The return trip was much better, only 2 hrs longer than GPS said it would take so that's progress.

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Dear lord, after 10 years of being single and viewing the GPS time (or Google Maps time) as something to be beaten by at least 10%, maybe I should rethink this whole "letting friends set me up" thing.

2 steps forward 5 steps back.

She got home from work at 6:00. It's now 7:34 and we still haven't left. We are only going to be gone until
Sunday evening. She's in Taco Bell getting "road food" because tacos are REALLY easy to eat while I'm driving.

EuBrew said:

2 steps forward 5 steps back.

She got home from work at 6:00. It's now 7:34 and we still haven't left. We are only going to be gone until
Sunday evening. She's in Taco Bell getting "road food" because tacos are REALLY easy to eat while I'm driving.

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I wouldn't even have pulled into the parking lot of a Taco Bell on a road trip.

I usually say "yes dear" to most things my wife wants, but I have limits! ;-)

My Mom used to stomp her foot and brace her hand on the ceiling for all four of us at the slightest perceived threat while riding shotgun. We teased her mercilessly at holiday dinners for years about it. We laughed a lot, she a little less.