These Are Your Routines When You Get Into Your Cars

Last week we asked you to share the routine you execute every time you get into your car. A personal question, yes, but an intriguing social experiment that yielded some fun results. These are a few of my favorite answers, but there were lots of interesting routines that y'all perform before setting off in your cars, so I encourage you to read through some of the other answers in the original post. 

Especially as car enthusiasts, the practice of getting into your car feels quite meditative, and thus I feel like the word ritual may be more apropos for some of you. My ritual when I enter my Mini prioritizes immediate buckling of my seatbelt and of course selecting the right songs to set the vibe for my drive prior to setting off. I also wait to allow my car's revs to drop on a cold start, which people say isn't necessary with new cars but I'm a creature of habit in that way. If you think your routine is particularly noteworthy and missed our original question, then leave it in the comments below and enlighten the Jalopnik audience to your unique practice. These are just a few of my favorite answers.

Sit down, seatbelt on, hit pushbutton start, IMMEDIATELY reach for the volume knob to turn down whatever I was blasting at 130db on my drive home so my eardrums don't collapse and crush my brain.

Years of conditioning have resulted in me not even being able to move my car a foot or two forward or backward in my garage without my seatbelt being on. It's a great habit to have, but it feels almost alien to be in the driver seat of a vehicle without the belt on.

Submitted by: i mek bron snek

Get in, seatbelt on, clutch in, neutral, slap the gear lever left to confirm neutral (because stalling on start is so embarassing), brake on, handbrake off, starter. Years of working in biosafety cabinets has left me somewhat ambidexterous, so everything prior to disengaging the handbrake happens basically simultaneously. Once the car is started, I check my mirrors to make sure no cars/pedestrians are coming, then I head off. If it's really cold, I'll wait a minute to put gloves on and let things warm up before I go.

Submitted by: Give Me Tacos or Give Me Death

My drive to work is through a winding (and challenging, like in fun) canyon. It was drilled into me from my very first driving school I ever took part in you don't want any loose items in a car, in my case, I have a heightened distraction level that occurs when I hear cargo shifting around, even something like spare change clanking. First thing I do is plop my iPad and phone into my seat-attached storage bin. The lunch cooler gets chucked onto the passenger footwell. That's it. It's an EV. Hit the D-button and go.

Submitted by: Rick C.

Answer 1: I sit down, put my coffee in the cup holder and my phone on a magnetic dash mount so that my hands are free. Buckle my seatbelt, plug in my phone, and turn on the ignition. I set the climate controls to whatever I need them to be, and pick whatever music option I feel like. Then I'm off to work.

Answer 2: I emerge from a mental fog somewhere around 9:30 a.m., at my work desk, with no concrete memory of how I got there, and only a very vague notion that I performed the actions in Answer 1.

Submitted by: Wretched_Genius

Sit Down (assuming the car is already setup for me, seat position, mirrors etc)

Close Door

Mount Phone

Seat Belt On

Clutch in, Trans in neutral

Start Car

Adjust volume on radio accordingly (I was likely blasting 5 Finger Death Punch when I got home)

Set nav etc

Go on my way.

Submitted by: Matthew Burke

Into drivers seat, gather any trash/loose items my wife has left lying around, remove bobby pins/hair ties/earrings/jewelry from the inside door handle (my wife likes to use it as a little storage cubby), plug in phone and mount to dash mount, press start button twice to turn on ignition and accessories, seatbelt on, foot on brake, start button to actually start the car, select music/audiobook and maps while I wait for the idle to drop, then set off. If I'm in our newer car, I'll turn on the ventilated seats or seat heater depending on if it's hot or my back hurts. I live in SoCal, so the heated steering wheel is unnecessary. I just use it in the winter sometimes because it's comfy.

Submitted by: MrMcGeeIn3D

Remote unlock the car (Fiat 500 Abarth). Open the driver's door then grab the short piece of 2x6 board from behind the LR tire because my parking break is non-op and hop in quick to minimize time that first gear is holding the car in place. (Alternative is back over the board and grab it through the open door while reaching down from the driver's seat.) Buckle up. Push "Start". Push "Sport" mode. Quick windshield squirt and wipe because I park under a tree. Headlights are always on but also turn on the fog lights because the car use all the visibility it can get with all of the distractedly driven huge SUVs and trucks around here. Back out and go.

Submitted by: Michael Rosenfeld

Driving gloves every time to prevent sticky buttons, grease and delamination of interior materials. Then remove the sunshade and then let her rip! I want to try and keep my Jag's interior nice for as long as possible so I gotta stick to this formula!

Submitted by: whydoesyourducatisoundbroken

My daily, start it up, let the idle drop and send her! My Z, I push it out of my garage (headers, test pipes, and after market exhaust) due to it shaking my house if I start it in my garage, put it in neutral, push in the clutch and push the start button. I let it idle until the temp gauge rises to the first bubble, strap on my seat belt, put it in first and leave my driveway at angle because my Z is about 3" off the ground.

Submitted by: Philip Nelson

If driving a modern car, it goes as follows:

1.) Turn car on

2.) As fast as I possibly can, I slam the "Start/Stop" button to disable it because there is no feature more infuriating

3.) Buckle seatbelt

All else is variable from there

Submitted by: sclass88

Shut the door, fart, adjust the seat, fart again, fasten seat belt, start truck, remember that I forgot the grocery list, shut the truck off, fart, unfasten seatbelt, fart again, get out of truck and go back inside the house

Submitted by: Rusty Shackleford

Before I get in, I turn my phone all the way up and start, then pause my Spotify playlist. If I don't do this, my infotainment will sometimes start playing Apple Music (which only has that stupid U2 album and some showtunes that Apple force downloaded).

After I get in I put my garage opener in the cup holder, drop the convertible roof, fasten my seatbelt and start the car. As I'm backing out of my space I lower the windows and open the garage door. Once I'm on the street I put on my sunglasses and turn up the music.

Submitted by: Samba00