[sammyg2]

I spend on average 7 hours a week carpooling.
There's just two of us, more than that would get to be a pain.

A decent, well-maintained and reasonably clean car is expected in carpool etiquite. Stereo is OK but not loud, and you should try to find something you all are OK with listening to.

The only conflict we've had so far was that he had a habit of calling his wife on the cell phone, every fricking day as soon as got started, and would talk for 15 or 20 minutes. And his phone went through the stereo speakers.
It was no longer a private conversation, it was their conversation that I was forced to listen to like some boring version of clockwork orange.
After about a week I came right out and told them both in the middle of one of their conversations, "hey, you two really should talk in private so this will be my last day car-pooling with you."
He didn't even realize why at first, then was cool about it and appologized. His wife was a beotch about it, but what else would you expect?


At the end of a long day people want to relax. No, they NEED to relax. To wind down and get the streess out of their heads and calm the heck down. They do not need to be pestered with someone else's obnoxiousness and carelessness.

Riding in a loud car with an exhaust that drones can cause headaches and is pretty damn obnoxious.
The longer the commute the worse it can be. You didn't mention fumes so I'm guessing its just the noise.
It's not a small thing to most people, something like that would drive me up a wall especially on my own car. If I had to put up with a loud car for 7 hours a week I'd get pretty damn annoyed too but I'd like to think I'd handle it with a little more tact.

You had several weeks to get it fixed.
You could stop at a muffler shop and they would weld the crack or replace the muffler or silencer or whatever, 30 minutes tops and a hundred bux. Maybe double that worst case.

Now if you were temporarily strapped for $$$$ I could understand, moving can be expensive.

But if you just didn't get around to it because it wasn't high enough up on the priority list then you were being inconsiderate. Not only to the passengers but to others around you.
How many times did the old man mention it in passing until he finally snapped at you?
Maybe he was tired of hearing the others complain in private and was the only one with the balls to speak up.
He could have handled it a whole lot better but you could have also.