A survey conducted in England by a British auto insurer reveals some interesting behavior about new car drivers. Most don’t have a clue about how their new cars work; they just get in and drive off.

The piece was eye-catching for me as I flashed back to a frantic call to my dealership several years ago as I was standing outside my car with the alarm shrieking and no idea how to stop it. I, like 35% of drivers (or at least those in England) hadn’t even glanced at the manual or I might have known to close the door, insert, and turn the key to disengage the alarm. (Notice it just took one ear-splitting incident for me to commit that procedure to memory.)

According to the study, 51% of drivers flick through the manual. Forty percent of women are more likely to drive without reading the manual as compared to 30% of men. The top five problems resulting from this self-imposed ignorance are:

• No idea how to open the hood.
• Clueless on the sound system.
• Stumped by seat position.
• Groping to turn on the headlights.
• Ditto for the wipers.

Thankfully, I was saved most of that by a salesman who wouldn’t let me have the keys until I knew how to do each one of those things. Coincidentally, that’s exactly what the study recommended — dealers and garages walking new car owners through the basics before letting them tool off in their new cars.

Seriously, in the event of an accident caused by your fumbling to find the light switch, neither the police officer nor your insurance agent is going to be all that thrilled with the news that you didn’t just read the book in the glove compartment. We all know about defensive driving how about some defensive reading?