Road Trips: This Is the Worst Part

Chevrolet's poll of U.S. drivers found that the most stressful part about family road trips isn't the kids.
www.thedrive.com

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Ahhh, the joys of the open road and the great American family road trip. Images of summer vacations and National Lampoon go running through my head. And the occasional threat of a slap from the front seat if I didn’t stop bothering my sister. For the record, she started it.

Chevrolet released the results of a survey it conducted to find out what stresses U.S. parents most on family road trips. Surprisingly, the kids were not the No. 1 stressor. Nearly two out of three parents said that traffic was the most stressful part of a family road trip.

Harris Poll conducted the study on behalf of Chevy, surveying 1,063 U.S. parents of children under 18. And while traffic was the big stress element of road trips, families were also very pleased with the availability of new gadgetry which makes sitting in traffic a little more bearable. More than half of the respondents said that internet connectivity helps make road trips more enjoyable. It was by far the top in-vehicle tech on their list for road trips.

Of course, the poll was commissioned by Chevy with the obvious intent of getting more people to spring for the in-car Wi-Fi available from the manufacturer. Most of the findings were centered around internet connectivity in the car. But there was a part of the study that still left me with the warm-fuzzies all over. A whopping 93 percent of all parents said they like or love taking road trips with their family and 90 percent of kids liked or loved spending time on the road with their families.

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Thanksgiving means road trips , Chevrolet

Director of Marketing for Chevrolet Cars and Crossovers, Steve Majoros, offered up the following explanation: “The vehicle is the new family dinner table, where memories are created and bonds grow strong. As families prepare to hit the road this holiday to spend time with friends and family, they can depend on crossovers like the 2018 Chevrolet Traverse and Equinox to meet their needs, from storage space to USB outlets, available 4G LTE Wi-Fi and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility.”

The moral of the story here, Elon Musk got it right with his Boring Company. Everybody hates traffic.