Does This Happen To You While Driving?
If you’ve ever pulled into your driveway and realized you have absolutely no memory of the last five miles, you aren't losing your mind. It’s quite common to experience all sorts of “glitches” when driving. It just goes to show you how weird the human brain is. With that in mind, here are 20 weird driving glitches we all experience.
1. The Sudden Arrival Syndrome
You glance at your phone and realize several songs have come and gone since you put it on shuffle. Even if you know every word to the songs playing, your brain treats listening to music like background noise. Unless you’re singing along, you’ll likely lose track of time when you zone out.
2. The Invisible Exit
You turn off your car and just stand there, wondering how the heck you got there. This glitch occurs when your brain erases all of the mundane details of a familiar commute. You drive the same way to work every day, so it feels like you de-materialize at work and magically appeared home.
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3. Braking Reflexes
Sometimes you’ll find your foot hovering over the brake pedal because you thought you saw a brake light or an animal, only to realize the road is empty. This occurs when your subconscious is hyper-vigilant, even though your conscious mind is daydreaming about your weekend plans. It’s a startling moment that usually wakes you up instantly.
4. The Exit Ramp Time Warp
When you leave the highway, it feels like everyone else on the road is suddenly standing still. You’ve been zooming along at 60 mph for far too long, so going 35 now might as well be 5 mph. As you merge onto the city streets, it will take some time before your brain adjusts to the new speed limit.
5. Conscious Blinking Lapses
When you drive the same scenery for too long, your brain stops registering new images. As a result, you won’t perceive time passing when you blink because to your brain, that three-second gap looked the same as the next three seconds.
6. Solo Conversations
If you’re driving alone, you might catch yourself having a full conversation with a person who isn't even in the car. Long drives lower your social filters and let your imagination run wild since you don't have to focus hard on the steering. It’s actually a great way to verbalize your feelings and talk to yourself.
7. The Parking Lot Key Fumble
Your car blends in with all of the other silver SUVs like it, and you’ll stand there clicking your unlock button and listening for the telltale chirp of your fob. It’s embarrassing to think you’ve been grasping at another person’s door handle for half a minute. But alas, parking lot fumbles are quite common.
8. The Red Light Staring Contest
We’ve all done this. Glared into the abyss of the red light only to completely miss the instant it turned green. Someone (hopefully) nice will beep behind you to snap you back to consciousness.
9. The Map-Reading Silence
If your GPS says make a “sharp left” in some unclear mountain intersection, you’re going to stop talking mid-conversation to hear that directive. Your passenger will just have to wait, because you literally cannot navigate a conversation and a five-way stop. As soon as you finish turning, you’ll continue your story like you weren’t gone for a minute.
10. The Incorrect Lane Commitment
There is a specific kind of frustration that comes with realizing you’re in a "must turn right" lane when you definitely need to go straight. Instead of making a scene, you might just accept your fate and take the detour because you're too polite to cut anyone off. Your brain was likely following a routine for a different destination entirely.
11. The Wiper Speed Anxiety
You might spend the entire duration of the rainstorm adjusting your windshield wipers back and forth, trying to get them to sync up perfectly with the falling droplets. Are they going too fast? Are they going too slow?
12. The Imaginary Obstacle Swerve
You’re driving down the road, minding your own business, and some random object comes into your peripheral vision. You immediately swerve to avoid it because, for a second, that crumpled piece of plastic looked just like a squirrel.
13. The Window Crack Adjustment
Sometimes the air pressure in the cabin feels slightly off, leading you to fiddle with the window switches until the noise level is balanced. You’ll roll one down an inch, then the other, trying to eliminate that rhythmic "wub-wub" sound that happens at high speeds. It’s a delicate aerodynamic puzzle that usually ends with you just turning the air conditioning on instead.
14. The Fuel Light Roulette
Every time you look at your fuel gauge and see that electric eye glowing bright-red at you, you suddenly calculate how many more miles you can make it. You lie to yourself and convince yourself that E= Enough Fuel to Get Home. Lies!
15. The Wrong Way Home
It’s Saturday, and you just left your house to go get a milkshake or something. You climb into your car to drive fifteen minutes away, when you realize you’ve started driving directly to work. Your body has a mind of its own sometimes.
16. The Sun Visor Dance
Sun setting in your eyes? Easy fix. Flip your sun visor down, angle it toward the side-window. Problem solved. Wait, how do I get that little strip of sunlight coming in right here? You and millions of other drivers are fighting this battle every day.
17. The Gear Shifter Ghost
People who transition from a manual transmission to an automatic often find their left foot "searching" for a clutch pedal that isn't there. You might even reach for the shifter at a stoplight, only to remember that the car is perfectly capable of handling things on its own. Kind of like a phantom limb.
18. The Toll Booth Window Fear
You drive up to this drive-thru window or toll booth, then panic because you think you may have parked too far away. No way you can reach that window, you’ll have to awkwardly lean half-out of your car!
19. The Garage Door Doubt
You’re driving home from work and suddenly panic that you wonder if you left your garage door open. Sure, you think you closed it, but when was the last time you paid attention when you closed your garage door? You totally have to go back and check now.
20. The High Beam Guilt
Accidentally leaving your brights on when a car approaches from the other direction feels like a massive personal failing. You scramble to flick them off, hoping the other driver doesn't think you're intentionally trying to blind them. That brief flash of their lights in return serves as a gentle reminder that you’re all in this together.
