Driving Vocab
back-seat driver - NOUN: 1. A passenger who constantly advises, corrects, or nags the driver of a motor vehicle. 2. A person who persists in giving unsolicited advice.
Examples:
“Stop being a back-seat driver! I know how to drive.”
“My girlfriend is such a back-seat driver. She is always telling me what to do when I’m driving.”
road hog - A driver whose vehicle overlaps the traffic lane used by another car. You are “hogging the road” when you don’t stay in your own lane and you drift into the lanes next to you. “Hog” is another word for 猪.
Examples:
“Look at this road hog. He is halfway in my lane!”
“Stop hogging the road and stay in your own lane.”Note: You can use “hog” as a verb to mean “to try to get something all to yourself” (like a pig eating food). For example, “Stop hogging the chips!” (Stop eating all of the chips — stop preventing other people from eating the chips.) “That guy always hogs the ball.” You will hear this in basketball — a player who refuses to pass the ball and always wants to keep the ball is called a “ball hog.”
running on empty -refers to an automobile being used with a low fuel supply (”the gas tank is empty”), but can more generally be used as an expression to denote exhaustion.
Examples:
“I’m so exhausted from working all of the time. I’ve been running on empty lately.”
“I haven’t slept in two days. I’m really running on empty right now.”
There is a famous song from the 1970s called “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne:
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up one-o-one I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on Running on - running on empty Running on - running blind Running on - running into the sun But I'm running behind Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own I don't know when that road turned onto the road I'm on Running on - running on empty Running on - running blind Running on - running into the sun But I'm running behind Everyone I know, everywhere I go People need some reason to believe I don't know about anyone but me If it takes all night, that'll be all right If I can get you to smile before I leave Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through Looking into their eyes I see them running too Running on - running on empty Running on - running blind Running on - running into the sun But I'm running behind Honey you really tempt me You know the way you look so kind I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find Running into the sun but I'm running behind
In the song, the singer is looking back on his life. He feels exhausted from “running.” “Running” here is used in abstract way — running through life. He feels like he is behind everyone else in the “race” of life in some way, but that everyone is just running with no real purpose. They don’t know why or where they are “running” to.
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