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You're Driving All Wrong, Says NHTSA
antdude writes "This MSNBC Bottom Line story/article says that 'If you're a conscientious motorist who still does everything the way your driver's-ed instructor told you to, you're doing it all wrong. For decades, the standard instruction was that drivers should hold the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 positions, as envisioned on a clock. This, it turns out, is no longer the case. In fact, driving that way could cost you your arms or hands in particularly gruesome ways if your airbag deploys. Instead AAA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and many driving instructors now say you should grip the wheel at 9 and 3 o'clock. A few go even further, suggesting 8 and 4 to avoid the airbag mechanism as much as possible, but what formal research has been published on the varieties of hand positions suggests that this may lessen your control of the car.'" I usually hold even lower on the wheel, perhaps 4:30 and 7:30, but I also drive with my seat pushed farther forward than most people like. Drivers, what's your approach?
"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. "
Albert Einstein
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
Sorry 'bout your wife's injury and I'm not directing this specifically at her as I don't know the circumstances. However, I've often wondered why folks who have enough time and anticipation to blow the horn don't use those mental resources to evade the collision in the first place- speaking strictly in those instances resulting in such. Horns are terribly overused and to me seem useful only in getting the attention of someone able to oblige. I would argue that the great majority of peers on the road are devoting 20% of their available mental resources to the task (driving) at hand, and that they should be allocating more like 80%. I find that drivers in Germany do an exemplary job of this, as well as abiding rules of the road and other drivers. The worst- China followed by America... (though I've not driven in any third world countries).
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
From what I observe, regardless of hand position most drivers are doing it wrong. Tailgating, cutting people off, never use turn signals, not accelerating before trying to merge on to a highway, running stop signs. I see almost all of this every day on the way to work, and it's only 17km. Hand position is the least of their problems.
Is what most professional race drivers have done for decades, for several reasons.
Professional racecar drivers let go of the steering wheel entirely when things go pear shaped,
otherwise they might break their thumbs or wrists due to a sharp jerk of the steering wheel.
This is the most recent example I can recall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K1CpII2yJM&t=77s
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Maybe, but the airbag rotates with the steering wheel, so if you keep your hands on 3 and 9 positions as you turn the wheel, the airbag should still explode in between your arms, instead of through them.
YMMV
Agreed wholeheartedly. But i don't blame drivers at all -- I blame the idiots who gave them the plastic that says they can drive.
I drive over 50Mm a year (that's 50 thousand km or about 30 thousand miles for the metric impaired) for work all over the province of Ontario up here in Canada, and there seems to be about 1/6 of drivers who are either clueless or distracted (head down fetching a CD, fixing hair in mirror, etc.) and about 5% who are genuine jerks with no thought to external consequences. I watched a small Honda cut in front of a full length transport truck with all his wheels down. One of us was smart enough to check how many wheels he had on the road and know he needed distance ... and one of us was in a rush and cut in front of him almost causing a jack-knife.
I have no respect at all for complete idiots on the road endangering others -- and I'm a bit of an aggressive driver myself but I signal, I leave room, and I watch my mirrors to understand traffic flow behind me. I also only drive in the left lane when moving faster than those in the lanes to my right.
The question is, why do we do road-side license suspensions (we do that in this province) for speeding when the guy eating soup while driving a truck is more of a hazard due to his inability to react to changes in the grid?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)