Back-seat driver

[JPablo]

back-seat driver: a passenger in an automobile who offers unwanted or unasked for advice about driving, especially from the back seat.

(It is also in the Tomísimo dictionary...)

My translation could be,
pasajero que importuna al conductor con sus indicaciones.

Any other better ideas?

Any shorter expression?

¿Entrometido, metiche, metomentodo?

(Probably that is a bit more general.)

Any ideas are welcome... even if they come from the back seat! ;)

[chileno]

Literalmente "pasajero conductor"

¿Cómo puede ser? ;)

[Sancho Panther]

I doubt if we'll improve on that - ¡muy bien!

[Perikles]

back-seat driver: a passenger in an automobile who offers unwanted or unasked for advice about driving, especially from the back seat.In my experience, the backseat driver is always on the front seat next to the driver. My response to the behaviour is always "Look - which side of the car has the steering wheel?"

And I invariably get the response

"The wrong one"

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

[aleCcowaN]

Cualquier frase que lo refiera como "inspector de manejo" (o la manera informal local de llamar a quien te examina para otorgarte tu primer carnet de conductor): "Nos trajimos al inspector de manejo con nosotros".

Yo siempre tengo un "¡calláte!" a flor de labios por si me llega a tocar algún aspirante a copiloto de aquellos tan útiles que sólo dicen especificidades como "¡cuidado!". A veces el "¡calláte!" se hace más explicado y se convierte en "¡calláte, o te dejo acá!".

[chileno]

I have a friend, who literally, got off the car in the middle of the street, and was asked by the character in question:

- Where are you going?

- I decided to walk since you are driving...

:D

[Sancho Panther]

"I have a friend, who literally, got off out of the car in the middle of the street:"

Please don't be offended - only trying to help!

[chileno]

Please don't be offended - only trying to help!

No problem. I could never be offended by people that help me.

I understand perfectly what the problem is, now if it helps any my friend is very fat, so he practically has to "get off" the car. :rolleyes:

Now, in my defense, I think this is an American use/misuse, and as such I "copy".

So now to wait for Americans.

Thank you, and please do not doubt in correcting me, because, even if it does not help me (for whatever reasons), it will help the reader.

:)

[poli]

Get out of the car is the way to say it in American English too. Oddly enough, you can use get off the car if you are leaving a train, bus, trolly, tram, cable car or street car.

[chileno]

Get out of the car is the way to say it in American English too. Oddly enough, you can use get off the car if you are leaving a train, bus, trolly, tram, cable car or street car.

So I sit corrected. I think I read too many western novels in my early days in this country.

:)

[aleCcowaN]

So I sit corrected.
:applause::lol::lol::lol:

[wrholt]

I agree with poli on US English: we get out of some vehicles and get off of other vehicles.

Whether we get off of it or get out of it depends on several interrelated factors.

For example, if we are completely inside of the vehicle while it moves (airplanes, cars, busses, trucks, trains), we get off of it if we stand and walk to the exit and we get out of it if we open a door next to our seat and set our feet down outside the vehicle in order to stand up.

For boats and ships, it is always possible to say that we get off of it. However, if it is a small boat that we leave by stepping directly off of it instead of using a ramp, we can also say that we get out of it.

If we ride on the outside of the vehicle (horses, bicycles, motorcycles, scooters), we get off of it.

In the case of carts and wagons, it depends partly on the configuration of the cart or wagon and how the passenger is riding on or inside it. In some cases we would get off of it, in some cases we would get out of it, and in some cases we could say either one.

[Sancho Panther]

Now I'm confused - I'm (obviously) familiar with train, bus, trolley, tram and cable car but I thought street-car was just another American name for tram. Also I'm surprised you refer to 'trolley' as these disappeared from Britain in the sixties. They used to be electric-powered (via overhead cable), but unlike trams they were free-steering (no steel rails).

So enlighten me as to what a street-car is, and if there are still trolley-buses in the US, please.

I should say tram-cars also disappeared fifty or sixty years ago, but they're very much back again now as high-tech "Metro-trams" whooshing passengers right from the heart of the city streets miles and miles into the satellite towns. Like the sixty mile one from Alicante to Denia.

[chileno]

wrholt:

Thank you for your detailed post. Very useful.

[wrholt]

Now I'm confused - I'm (obviously) familiar with train, bus, trolley, tram and cable car but I thought street-car was just another American name for tram. Also I'm surprised you refer to 'trolley' as these disappeared from Britain in the sixties. They used to be electric-powered (via overhead cable), but unlike trams they were free-steering (no steel rails).

So enlighten me as to what a street-car is, and if there are still trolley-buses in the US, please.

I should say tram-cars also disappeared fifty or sixty years ago, but they're very much back again now as high-tech "Metro-trams" whooshing passengers right from the heart of the city streets miles and miles into the satellite towns. Like the sixty mile one from Alicante to Denia.

Usage has changed over time here, but depending on where you are (or were), "trolley" and "street car" may be synonyms or they may be distinct. "Tram" is typically viewed as a British term.

Boston's public transportation system has a mixture of modes, that include:
1. busses with internal combustion engines

2. trackless trolleys/electric busses: or free-steering busses powered by overhead cables. Some run on the street, a couple of lines run in dedicated roadbeds or tunnels.

3. the "subway" system: 4 separate rail lines (designated by color and by terminal stations): Different sections run underground, on elevated tracks, or at grade.

One of the lines uses trolley cars/street cars either singly or in pairs: they are powered by overhead wires, and run in dedicated tunnels close to the city center and run at grade level further out, sometimes on dedicated roadbeds and sometimes down the middle of a street competing with regular traffic. This line is typically called a "trolley" or a "street-car".

The other three subway lines have train-like cars connected in groups of between 2 and 6 cars. However, each line has a different mix of power systems, so that the cars from one line cannot operate on a different line without re-configuration. Some lines use 3rd rails, some use overhead wires, and some use both on different sections of track.

4. Commuter rail: higher-speed diesel or diesel-electric trains that connect to the outer suburbs. Some lines share track with inter-city train lines such as Amtrak.

5. Commuter ferries: a couple of passenger ferries from downtown across the harbor to the airport or along the city's coast to neighboring towns to the south.

[poli]

It's regional. In Philadelphia there are trolleys but they are also known as streetcars. They have tracks and electric cables above. In New Orleans they are very similar system, but known as streetcars(I don't think you can take Desire to the Elysian Fields as Blanche DuBois once did, but that's wouldn't be a very happy ride anyway;)). San Fransico has cable cars with no electric wire above. The cars are pulled by cables underground. They also have bus-like trolleys powered by electric cables, and streetcars that navigate the hillless of downtown and the embarcadero (I can't remember if they have a wire above of if they are operated by an underground cable)

[Rusty]

Now I'm confused - I'm (obviously) familiar with train, bus, trolley, tram and cable car but I thought street-car was just another American name for tram. Also I'm surprised you refer to 'trolley' as these disappeared from Britain in the sixties. They used to be electric-powered (via overhead cable), but unlike trams they were free-steering (no steel rails).

So enlighten me as to what a street-car is, and if there are still trolley-buses in the US, please.

I should say tram-cars also disappeared fifty or sixty years ago, but they're very much back again now as high-tech "Metro-trams" whooshing passengers right from the heart of the city streets miles and miles into the satellite towns. Like the sixty mile one from Alicante to Denia.
If you search images in Google, you'll find that a few of these words overlap.
A search on tram, for instance, shows pictures of what I would call a streetcar (although they look like buses). These travel along certain streets, on rails, and get their power from overhead wires. I also saw a picture of a vehicle that is suspended from a cable. This is what I know as a tram. That and an open, train-like vehicle that transports workers and materials to a mine, on rails, pulled by a cable, are the two trams that I'm familiar with.
A search on streetcar brings up pictures that show a bus-like vehicle traveling along certain streets, on rails, and that get their power from overhead wires. So, the terms streetcar and tram seem to overlap in some instances.
A search on cable car shows images of at least three different vehicles. One is the car that travels on rails along certain streets, pulled by a cable lying under the road level (between the rails). These are very popular in San Francisco, CA, and the one I'm most familiar with. Another picture showed a motorized cable car, which I would call a trolley. The third vehicle I saw showed cars suspended from a cable. That is what I know as a tram.
A search on trolley shows a motorized, bus-like vehicle that travels about on streets. It has wheels (doesn't travel on rails). Many people refer to the cable cars in San Francisco as trolleys, and I even found an image, entitled 'trolley problem', that shows a cable car headed downhill. So, there's another example of overlap.
Perhaps this is why there is some confusion. ;) Now I'm confused.

[Perikles]

And going off-topic, my home town in England, Huddersfield, boasted the first electric trolleybuses in the world. The original system was clever - because the town is only hills, the buses going uphill took energy from the grid, and those going downhill generated electricity and fed the grid. This worked brilliantly for a year until it just so happened that all the buses were going downhill at the same time, and blew up the central transformer. Good idea, though. :rolleyes:

[aleCcowaN]

This worked brilliantly for a year until it just so happened that all the buses were going downhill at the same time, and blew up the central transformer.
That probably was in "the good ole time"s where there weren't regional or national power grids and thunderstorms may leave your home in the dark. Or it just was a direct current system in the old age when oscillators were expensive and inefficient and there were no protective elements available in case of a power surge.

[JPablo]

Well, I'll have to catch up with all the answers, but thanks a lot for all the input... (I am a bit behind the 8-ball...)