This article, by Justin Baiocchi, was originally published in The Northern Daily Leader on 25 March 2017.

Late last year we moved house and now live about 40 kilometres away from the office. As far as commutes go, it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s about half an hour door to door – in Sydney that would be almost like living in the same suburb as your work. It’s also highway driving almost the entire way, which gives me plenty of time each day to observe the other drivers. It has reached the point where I have started categorising drivers into general behavioural types. There’s the Go-slow-Go-fast driver – that’s the one that drives at 80km/h in a 100 zone, but when it drops to 50km/h in a town, just keep their foot glued to the accelerator and blow through at 80km/h. It’s as though they’re only comfortable driving at one speed, regardless of the actual signed limit. Either that or they’re simply not noticing that they’ve entered an urban area, which is even worse.

Another familiar face on the highway is one we all know too well – the Tailgater. Don’t you just love it when you’re stuck behind a 30-tonne truck doing 50km/h in a 100 zone, and the Tailgater roars up your behind and thinks that sitting two feet from your back bumper is somehow going to make the truck in front of you go faster? They’re either just overly helpful or incredibly short-sighted – maybe they just can’t see the truck in front of you, and if you gave them the appropriate hand-signal (the universal one for ‘hello’), they might realise their error and retreat to a safe distance? That’s what I think anyway, but it never seems to work. The other common highway driver is of course the P-plater. I don’t mean to generalise, but I’ve begun to think that the ‘P’ doesn’t stand for ‘Provisional’, but rather it means you’re sharing the road with a ‘Philosophical’ driver. I say this because most P-platers seem to adopt a philosophical approach to speed limits – they are there to be considered, not obeyed. Philosophical drivers interpret speed limits as they see fit, as being up for debate and most oftentimes outright ignored.

So what does this have to do with finance? The commonality is that irrational drivers (like the ones helping you push the B-Double up the hill) are as prevalent as irrational investors. People want to buy when they should be selling; sell when they should be buying; want gold when they should be in oil; and want shares when they should be in cash. Irrational investment choices can be just as damaging for your financial health as a run in with the Tailgater is bad for your rear bumper. Avoid both as much as you can.