Proper car etiquette is something that escapes some people.

This man was driving his girlfriend’s car on a long drive when she started blasting music he didn’t like. He turned it down a few notches, and she started getting irate.

Read the full story below for more details.

AITA for turning music down in my girlfriend’s car?

For context, we went on a little road trip over the weekend to hang out with some of my girlfriend’s coworkers.

As we were starting our 3-hour trip back home, we were driving her car (I was driving, she was in the passenger seat). She started blasting country music as we were getting on the highway—I mean LOUD, all the way up, so her doors were rattling.

She knows I’m not the biggest fan of country (I like some of it), and I’m definitely not in the mood to blast country music for 3 hours, my goodness!

I quickly turned it down to a reasonable level. I didn’t turn it off, and to be honest, it was still kind of loud, so you could feel the beat and hear the lyrics over the road noise, but it wasn’t full blast like it originally was.

It was a solid 7/10 on the loudness scale. I wasn’t even being a jerk about it. I just calmly turned it down a few notches and said nothing. Then we immediately got into an argument about it. I thought I was being pretty fair, though.

This man has his reasons for lowering the volume,

My argument: I wasn’t in the mood to listen to insanely loud music, let alone from a genre that’s not my favorite. However, I’m not a complete jerk, so I would tolerate it if she wanted to compromise and just listen to it at a reasonable level.

We were both in the car on a long drive home, so let’s pace ourselves and be respectful. I would have preferred not to listen to it at all, but I wanted to compromise.

It was still plenty loud enough to enjoy. It seemed fair, right?

Why would you want to make any passenger in your car uncomfortable, especially on a long-ish road trip?

But his girlfriend argued back.

Her argument: Since it’s her car, she makes the rules. Therefore, she’s allowed to blast music as loud as she wants, even at the detriment of her passengers.

And I was being a rude party pooper by turning it down to a reasonable level.

I’m not kidding, that was literally her reasoning. She was dead serious and pretty furious. And no, we’re not teenagers, we’re both full-grown adults.

I know this is petty, but it really took me aback. My girlfriend is usually a very polite, thoughtful, and kind person.

At first, I felt like this was either a joke or I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.

He thought she was being childish.

I’m always very polite with my passengers in this regard. I drive more safely because their lives are in my hands, I make sure the temperature is comfortable, etc.

And if I turn on music, I’ll usually keep it really low so it’s not distracting, and I normally ask if they’d like to listen to anything else or if it’s fine.

That’s what I was taught and how I’ve handled my passenger etiquette my entire life.

Her argument about it being her car and doing whatever she wanted while I was in the car seems a little… childish. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Loud music can be distracting. Safety first.

Other people in the comments are piping up.

Here’s a fair rule.

Another person chimes in.

It’s an issue of safety, says this one.

This makes sense.

And people are taking his side.

If you want to damage your ears with loud music, do it alone.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.