To assess relative density of subject matter for the next photo-quiz.
1) I hold the steering wheel - do you?
2) Given that an evolutionary perspective would have us descended from apes and that on `Monkey` various positions are adopted - with something as simple as holding a banana - how do you hold the wheel?
3) Given that some people love cars and that the driving test makes you adopt the 10 to 2 `missionary (near miss) position` behind the wheel - what does the `car-ma soot-ra` teach that could be adopted in steering wheel holding position?
More to the point - what have you seen, while on the move? in traffic - hands and wheel related.
4) (related to question 1)
Ever seen anyone driving with their elbows and eating a jellied eel. (apart from Lud;)
;)
oilrag
Edited by oilrag on 01/12/2008 at 07:02
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Interesting.
A local car magazine recently tested a Rolls Royce, and the tester said that 20-to-three was the ideal position in rollers.
Also, back to your simian analogy, us humans have the opposing thumb, but I never use mine to grip the wheel, but rather rest them on the rim - a lesson learned after nearly losing a thumb a few years back when the offroader I was driving gave me some serious 'steering feedback' through the wheel.
Joys of automatics - you can eat pies, hold a bottle of pop between your legs AND light a cigarette, all the time steering with your knees!
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Knees are a suitable alternative to hands. Elbows are not.
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I vary my hand position. 10 to 2, quarter to 3 and because of the shape of the C8's wheel, 20 to 8 is comfortable for a while.
The bus driver on a school trip I went on a couple of years ago used a hand-help mobile as he tanked up the middle lane of the A1, steering with his elbows. Because he stayed in the middle lane for the whole 10 minute conversation, he didn't need to signal.
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Usually at 1/4 to 3. The Volvo's wheel lends itself nicely to it, as does the Scenic's. Sometimes I am guilty of removing my left hand from the wheel, and resting my right elbow on the windowsill. Not a habit I am proud of.
The current fashion seems to to steer the car with the inside wrist of the right hand at 12 o'clock on the wheel, with the hand itself dangling between the wheel and the dashboard.
For added comfort, the seat must be reclined, and the driver's upper body canted slightly to the left with the entire width of the neck to the left of the head restraint. A baseball cap and vacant expression are bonuses.
The future holds much in store for today's youth, not least vast chiropractor bills.
Edited by DP on 01/12/2008 at 09:40
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The current fashion seems to to steer the car with the inside wrist of the right hand at 12 o'clock on the wheel with the hand itself dangling between the wheel and the dashboard.
More simian reference?
But you are WRONG - it is the LEFT hand, as the right arm is used for elbow-leaning, gesticulating, stuffing face with crisps, smoking a fag, or making obscene gestures to passing women.
Also - and I have witnessed it, for leaning ACROSS the left arm, to adjust volume/channel on the stereo.
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>20 to 8 is comfortable for a while.
Do you really mean 20 to 8, Hawkeye? That seems just a mite peculiar ...
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I hold the steering wheel - do you?
Of course not. When I'm not using my hands to thumb through the latest edition of the Mutton Dressed as Lamb glossy mag, I need both hands to touch up my makeup because these days driving means that I'll be on camera. (The Gatsos ignore me, but there is CCTV and ANPRs everywhere)
Seriously though, I do hold the wheel with both hands. Unlike most drivers, I even do so during manoeuvres, because my car does not require me to remove a hand from the wheel in order to wiggle a stick on the floor.
And I hold it at ten to two, like it says in Roadcraft.
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"Mutton Dressed as Lamb"
I read that too. I like an older woman.
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Why 10 to 2 rather than 20 to 8? What's the big advantage?
I have an idea, and I think it dates back to an observation made by Lanchester, but, I'll keep it quiet for a while!
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20 past 7 more or less. If these things are adjustable I like the wheel low and the seat high as well, with the seat back not too reclined but not bolt upright either. You can get used to almost anything of course - a surprising number of cars have or used to have controls so positioned that the driver had to sit a bit sideways - but some cars are far more instantly comfortable than others.
I can't imagine why oilrag thinks of me as a person who steers with their elbows while scoffing jellied eels. Nothing would induce me to eat a jellied eel. Perhaps he just thinks I will claim to have seen someone else doing it.
Well, I haven't, although I have seen people doing all sorts of things they shouldn't while driving, and even done them myself sometimes. More than that I cannot say.
:o}
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I often use the 'eel of my hand.
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My brother (who was working as a labourer at the time) used to be able to drive his Rover 100 by grasping the very middle of the steering wheel and twiddling it left and right like a giant volume control.
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I like those "clamp-on" spinny-handles that you get on fork-trucks and tractors, used them for years, you could control and steer (with inch-perfect preceision) many tons of load or machine perfectly safely, with one hand, and work other controls with the other at the same time. There is no valid reason that they should be banned from cars, would be a safety-aid for reversing especially!
Billy
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I hold the wheel, with one or both hands. I do not, under any circumstances, milk the cow.
I still put my thumb(s) around the rim, despite having my left thumb badly sprained in a car crash, in a similar manner to Ians off-roading example. But now keep a looser, relaxed, comfortable hold on the wheel.
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perfectly safely with one hand and work other controls with the other at the same time. There is no valid reason that they should be banned from cars would be a safety-aid for reversing especially! Billy
i saw one of those steering handles on the wheel of a black cab last week !!
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I like to sit as far from the steering wheel as possible because, in the event of an accident, I'd rather not hit my chest on the wheel. Because this, and the orientation of the steering wheel relative to the seat, I'm most comfortable holding the wheel at twenty to three.
I don't like being followed by a driver with both of his hands at the top of the wheel and his forearms resting on the wheel. I can't imagine that this position gives much control.
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Just over a year ago, I posted on this very subject, funny how it keeps coming round ;-)
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=57...2
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The first Jowetts, about 1906, had a tiller. Would be quite nice now on a lazy engined, power steered automatic.
Ted
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Was it Ian(Cape Town) who reported some years ago a ride in a taxi with a missing steering wheel, but a mole wrench clamped on the end of the column?
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Yep.
That way they can get another passenger into the front seat.
I've given up on reporting on our local minibusses here - there'd be too many threads!
Ask henry k... he's had recent experience of our roads...
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I've given up on reporting on our local minibusses here - there'd be too many threads! Ask henry k... he's had recent experience of our roads...
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During every holiday I have spent in South Africa I have always watched my mirrors far more than in the UK as I am never sure where the next overtaking effort is coming from. This applies on all roads not just in the city.
With the number of bodies cramed in, the C of G must be well outside the envelope so I hope none asks them re the "Elk Test" :-)
Needless to say I have never travelled in any of these minibusses.
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I was called to recover a Cavalier many years ago where the wheel had snapped off during an attempt to nick the car.
I couldn't get the transporter in to the multi storey where it was so I drove it down to ground level and loaded it using a mole wrench....happy days.
Ted
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>>so I drove it down to ground level and loaded it using a mole wrench...
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I have been towed over a sutbble field in my gutted car behind a tow truck but I was kneeling on the floor with the mole wrench on the steering column.
.....not happy days.
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