Driving tips and other life stuff

8 lies Hollywood told you about driving

1. Driving without looking out the windscreen is totally doable

   In every single Hollywood movie, at some point someone drives fast with their eyes fixed constantly on anything but the road.

   This has been a phenomenon since movies began: actors have a superhuman instinct for driving blind.

   

   But you're not a Hollywood actor. If you try to do a turn around the West Byfleet roundabout while simultaneously lighting a cigarette and telling a sultry woman you love her, it won't end well.

2. You are at least 20% sexier with a car

   Average-looking dude gets a car. Instantly has 10,000 friends and more girls than he can fit in his backseat. Takes on the highschool bully and wins the babe who's ignored him for the previous 5 years.

   Hey, this may work in real life - if your car is a 1960 Aston DB4 GT Zagato. Your mum's old Skoda Fabia isn't going to have quite the same effect.

   Especially if you don't get that Tinkerbell sticker off the back window.

   

3. Cinemas will let you drive right in and park

   You will be arrested. Do not attempt.

   

4. Cars are indestructible

   In film land, you can crash a car into a lorry, roll over 10 times and walk away with just a dashingly handsome cut to the head.

   If a dinosaur finds your Jeep in its path, it may crush it slightly. But you will survive.

   Public service announcement: if a dinosaur steps on your Fiat Punto, you better hope you're not in it. And good luck with your insurance claim.

   

5. Seatbelts don't exist

   They're not even there. Do not exist.

   And yet people survive those 10 rolls down a rocky hillside into a tree.

   In the real world, seatbelts DO exist and for very good reason: if you don't wear one, you will very likely die in the event of a crash.

   Always remember that you don't have a stunt man.

   

6. Insurers welcome flying cars

   And time-travelling cars.

   And cars that turn into submarines.

   And cars that think for themselves.

   And cars that shoot fire out of their exhausts.

   Seriously, who's insuring these things?

   

7. In the event of a zombie apocalypse, everyone will leave their keys in the ignition

   And plenty of petrol in the tank, of course. You will probably also find a gun in the glovebox, just in the nick of time.

   Desperately in need of some antibiotics / surgical equipment / prosthetic limbs?

   Fancy a drop of whisky or reckon your against-the-odds newborn baby could use a teddy bear?

   Check the trunk. You bet it's in there.

   

8. Cars are both large enough and comfortable enough for romance

   Ever tried making out in the backseat of a Toyota Yaris?

   It may have a surprisingly spacious boot for a small car but that does rather eat into your available canoodling space.

   Plus, you'll get arrested with one foot out the window and your pants caught on the handbrake if you try.