Hi all,
Whilst winding down the M6 to work yesterday (just love quiet summer traffic) I noticed a fair number of drivers with their seat really close to the steering wheel. They were a mix of young women or elderly people and they seemed to have the seat as fully forward as possible. Would this increase the likelyhood of injuries if they had a crash ? I know some peoples size makes it hard for them to reach pedals, wheel etc but surely in the event of a crash, even with an airbag they wouldn't come out of it too good...
Any thoughts folks ?
Rich
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I believe they might be injured if the airbag discharges.
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I've always noticed that this phenomenon seems to mainly involve young women. It does make me wince to see it as some of them sit so close that any airbag detonation would be bound to hurt.
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A (female) work colleague of mine does this and even though she's quite short I asked her why. It's so she can read the screen of her phone whilst texting!
Oh oh, the 'Sheilas Wheels' jingle is in my head again. Help!
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I am willing to bet that a fair proportion of those drivers who sit too close have eyesight that is borderline for driving.
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I notice some taxi drivers do this as well as the young female generation too.
Many of the old biddies who drive to close is usually because their eyesight tend to be failing.
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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I sit quite close to the steering wheel. Since my height is short, if I sit far from steering, I don't feel comfortable with the pedals and steering.
Ideally, steering should have reach adjustment. But only the pricey ones have this feature.
Cars are usually designed for average height people, so anyone who does not fit in that size, is at disadvantage.
For the same reason, I can't drive any car which doesn't have driver's seat height adjustment. Because it puts my legs in "unnatural" position and I start feeling pain just after half an hour.
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I am willing to bet that a fair proportion of those drivers who sit too close have eyesight that is borderline for driving.
If that's true, I wonder what they think they achieve by being just a few inches closer to the steering wheel & windscreen? It's a truly frightening thought!
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I am willing to bet that a fair proportion of those drivers who sit too close have eyesight that is borderline for driving>>
I cannot grasp the concept behind this comment. I think it is more likely to be those who are vertically challenged and cannot achieve a comfortable driving position otherwise.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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I cannot grasp the concept behind this comment. I think it is more likely to be those who are vertically challenged and cannot achieve a comfortable driving position otherwise.
Used to happen with learner drivers. I always did an eysight check when starting a new pupil, but a surprising number of instructors did not. I often took a pupil over who had come from someone else, and if they sat close up to the wheel and did not want to follow the advice to move to the correct position it more often than not followed that a standard numberplate check showed them up to be either below standard or just about ok.
The natural tendancy is to get as close to the screen as possible and peer through it.
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It depends on the design of each car's driving position: even with all possible adjustments of seat and wheel available, sometimes one just can't get comfortable.
I'm 5'7" with average size body and shorter-than-average legs. I like my arms to be only slightly bent when holding the steering wheel at 10-to-2. This is fine in all the VAG cars and Toyotas I've tried, but in a BMW 3-series I have to have the wheel much closer than that in order to depress the (heavy)clutch. This is one of several reasons why a 320d is off my shortlist.
It's less of a problem with an automatic, but I do enough miles a year to justify a diesel and I'm going for a manual this time to avoid so much turbo lag.
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If anyone knows how to prevent this please tell me - my wife is wonderful but she has always sat stupidly close to the steering wheel. In our Astra, which has height/reach adjustment on the steering wheel as well as the seat, she still sits a few inches away however I arrange them.
My solution, to avoid divorce proceedings, is to drive myself whenever possible and to drink at home!
Edited for you at the risk of being flamed ! - PU
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I wish we could edit errors in our own posts!
I do mean "drive" not "frive".
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A further thought - it's curious that this didn't seem to be such a problem in the old days when steering wheels were fixed (for reach and rake I mean) and all you had was fore-and-aft adjustment for the seat. Come to think of it, that's all there was in the Ford Ka that SWMBO had a few years ago, and we both drove that quite comfortably, even occasionally on long journeys.
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usually it's a lack of education when people first start driving i.e. how to set themselves up with a comfortable and workable driving position.... once you get used to your own driving position no one really wants to change.......although i'd accept short people might have little choice....(although, within reason, if you're short i'd recommend trying to afford a car with everything adjustable, to compensate and give yourself half a chance of surviving a bad shunt)
being right on top of explosives cannot do you any favours in an accident and/or you're that much closer to the steering column, which you really ought to be trying to avoid..hence the airbag
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I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that if you're too close to the wheel then you can't use the steering wheel properly. I find it disturbing to think there are a sizeable proportion of people out there who COULD NOT steer their way out of trouble. Of course that assumes they have the ability to do so in the first place.
If you don't fit in a car then you shouldn't be driving it. Part of the reason I'll probably never have a Lotus Elise or MX5 unless I shrink 1/2 a foot in my dotage.
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If you don't fit in a car then you shouldn't be driving it. >>
Yes, if that were legally enforced then manufacturers would be obliged to allow for a wider range of adjustment between seat, pedals and steering wheel.
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Surely the main thing is to be comfortable in your driving position. People are different shapes and sizes and must choose their own preferred distance from the wheel. Your arms must be in a natural position neither outstretched or crunched up. Cruise control when safe to use takes a lot of ache from the legs too.
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What's also lost it seems to me, when driving hard against the steering wheel, is the whole ergonic 'relationship' to the other controls & vehicle instruments. You probably can't easily see the warning lights or status indicators easily without looking away from the road, gear changing ease will surely be compormised, rear view mirrors will require a greater head or eye movement to monitor etc.
Most cars are designed with instruments/pedals/levers/vision points etc. optimised for a fairly narrow range of seating positions - go outside of this envelope too much & some aspect of car control will suffer.
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Just got in my car after SWMBO - and noticed how close the seat was to the wheel, she has her key I have mine with the settings stored, I'll speak to her later...
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Well I was thinking in like 20 years when I'm too old to be battered.
Funnily enough when she takes the Landie out the seat on that is right back on the furtherst adjustment.
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Is that the 535D, PU? If so that tallies with my experience of the 320d as mentioned above. I haven't noticed the need to sit particularly close to the wheel in any other of the many cars I've been trying recently, so maybe it's a problem peculiar to BMWs.
I would imagine that Mrs PU is able to sit further from the wheel in her Golf GTI.
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There is a problem with the ergonomics of most RHD BMW's they just aren't converted properly from the proper cars.
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>>most RHD BMW's they just aren't converted properly from the proper cars.
I must say I haven't noticed this in BMW's I've driven. That 'offset' pedal thing oft quoted - I just didn't notice it, maybe my legs are funny though. All the controls looked, more or less, in the right place - don't recall the wiper arc,( which some lhd to rhd mess up) being odd either. BMW bikes are definitely ok though.
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Precisely as you say- the pedals are offset forcing you to twist which becomes painful on long journeys and the wipers in out E46 and E39's were set for LHD.
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Being an average 6'0 tall with average 32" legs, I haven't yet found a car that won't accommodate me comfortably. What puzzles me is that young women in particular, who might only be 4 or 5 inches shorter than me, often sit with their chest almost pressed against the steering wheel, leaning forward.
I was always taught by my driving instructor, that the top of the steering wheel should be just within comfortable reach, as should the bottom of clutch-pedal travel.
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I sit as far as possible from the steering wheel ~ and have done ever since I saw someone with the steering column stuck in their chest in the 1960s. I know designs have changed since that time, and that we now have seat belts and air bags, but I still feel that all solid objects in front of me in a car should be as far away as possible.
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L\'escargot.
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