Slashdot Mirror
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?
I drive coaches, busses and cars...
I personally hold my hands like this;
Coach/Bus: Left hand on the money tray, RIght hand at 2
Car: Left hand on gear stick (yes... in the real world we drive manuals...) and right hand at 2
Driving with 2 hands on the wheel seems unnatural to me unless i'm flooring it... as I drive really relaxed...
I had my hands at roughly 9 and 3 when it did; all I got from the airbag were some friction burns on my right arm and a good snort of stuff I'd have rather not breathed.
Trying to specify any particular exact hand position given the variety of people, steering wheels, and driving positions seems pointless.
And performance driving instructors have been advocating push-pull steering (rather than hand-over-hand) for a very long time. Not because of the airbag, but because it provides better control. Whether it makes a difference on the road or in the mall parking lot I doubt.
I sit so far back from the wheel that it would not do me any good anyway, and the collision threshold is typically set so low that the airbag actually presents a greater threat than is justifiable. In a low-speed collision where the car does not come to a stop, it might still be necessary to control the vehicle afterwards. If your arms have been blown off the steering wheel and possibly broken/severed by it, that's not possible, and can lead to secondary, even more injurious collisions.
I know this because I was involved in just such a collision (with a deer) where the airbag caused me to lose control of my vehicle, and my arms were broken so badly I could not turn the wheel to avoid having a second, must worse collision (with a tree), which killed my wife and 4 year old son, and left me paralyzed from the waist down.
They told me my son was killed instantly, and it took my wife 8 days to pass away in intensive care. I did not wake up from my coma until day 9. That was the worst day of my life.
If you're starting to drift in a skid, hand position is going to matter less than how fast you can turn the wheel against the rotation to catch it before you overrotate and go off the road sideways. Some positions might be a bit better than others, but it really depends on what the wheel angle is when your tires decide to let go. :p
Sad attempt at a sideways dig at the US, but it is the law in 49 out of the 50 states. In 32 states, it is a primary offense.
Sideways dig or not, it's probably still true:
Most countries [who?] outside North America adhere to internationalized European ECE vehicle and equipment regulations rather than the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. ECE airbags are generally smaller and inflate less forcefully than U.S. airbags, because the ECE specifications are based on belted crash test dummies.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbag#United_States
If you learn how to steer from the bottom of the wheel, at the 8 and 4 position like some cops do then your hands stay down out of the way at all times.
Another thing to learn from the police: When it comes to your window, keep it up all the way or down all the way. Then if you have an accident you don't have a guillotine ready to chop off any bit that goes out the window.
Of course, over here in Europe (you know, where the history comes from) these injuries are incredibly rare.
We have this great device called a seat belt, which is compulsory to wear. Our airbags are known as "SRS" - the Supplimentary Restraint System. They don't explode at you with anywhere near the force of the US ones because they're not trying to restrain your entire body - just cushion the impact of your head upon the steering wheel or dashboard. The massive force required to restrain the body is provided by the seat belt, enhanced in most cases these days by an impact-triggered tightening mechanism.
It puzzles me why a population would choose the "freedom" to not wear a seatbelt and then happily accept the consequence - a much bigger explosive device mounted right in front of you. Just look up the statistics for babies killed in front passenger seats - these are accidents that happen over there, not over here.
Still, I'm sure you have a really good reason for doing things this way around. Surely you do.... no one would be THAT dumb, right?
(apologies for the anon posting - the /. login mechanism appears currently unable to cope with my (albeit somewhat strange) username....)