Recently I’ve been asking this question to many people and also made a poll about this.

Question: You are in a car with two other friends, and you were sitting in the backseat. The driver drops off the person sitting shotgun, and now it’s just you (in the backseat) and the driver. While your friend is getting out of the car, do you move to the front of the car? If you have a threshold of time before you decide to move up, what would the time limit be?

I thought the acceptable answer was pretty obvious. But I was wrong. There does seem to be a 50/50 split on whether the person in the back should move to the front. Shocking!

I think there is only one correct answer: you should always move to the front; unless it’s pouring rain or if you are dropped off on the same street (<1 min). Otherwise, it would look like the driver is an Uber driver with a passenger in the back. It would be disrespectful to the person driving. Of course, the line begins to blur if the driver and the person in the back knew each other less. Well, should it? 

In my (very not scientific) poll, some wouldn’t bother to move up unless the drive was longer than 20 minutes. Others hadn’t even considered it thoroughly before: “It’s not something I would think about.” I wonder if I hear those responses because they’ve never driven other people before? or maybe they don’t talk in the car? Maybe I’m overthinking…

Side note: my favorite response was: “I’ll never be in a situation where the person in shotgun gets dropped off first.” Good planning, my friend!