Fun fact: many modern cars come with bumps on the inside of the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 positions. This is to make it more uncomfortable for you to curl your thumb around the inside of the steering wheel when holding it there, while still allowing your fingers to securely hold the wheel as they wrap around the outside.
Why? When the air bags go off, a thumb that wraps around the steering wheel from the front is much more liable to be badly broken or even torn off entirely by the rapidly-expanding air bag than any finger, due to the thumb’s structure and configuration when the hand is gripping the wheel in those positions.
The airbag is meant to protect the face and upper body, so it expands most in that 10-2 region, often violently ripping the hands off of the steering wheel when it impacts the forearms. And thumbs simply aren’t designed to bend backwards far enough to allow the hands to be easily forced off the steering wheel in directions that are at right angles to the arm. So the best position for any thumb in the 10 and 2 areas is flat on the steering wheel instead of wrapped around it.
Having a hand further down on the wheel, such as in the seven or four position, makes it much harder to tightly wrap a thumb around the wheel in the first place. Additionally, the expanding air bag is also much less likely to impart extreme force on the forearm when it is in that position, thereby greatly reducing the risk of damage to the thumb. Which is why there are no thumb bumps there.
Which Bluey episode is this?
I have so many memories of my dad driving us up to the corner store, beer in hand, to put $5 in the tank and rent us Megaman 4.
*9 and 3.
Came here to say that whoever wrote this is old, like me.
The switch from 10/2 to 9/3 is because of airbags. If you’re doing it the old way, you’re more likely to have the airbag catch your hand and whack you right in the face with it.
10 and 2 was always stupid. When I was young I got an opportunity to go to a racing school and that was one of the first things they talked about. If you mime driving a car, do you put your hands at 10 and 2? No, you’ll probably do 9 and 3. Better control, less going hand over hand.
Also you should push the steering wheel with your outside hand, not pull it. Smoother input.
Aha, hand over hand, now I get to wax poetic about that.
Hand over hand steering was useful up until maybe the mid 1960s. Later, too, but after about 1967, power steering was becoming more the norm. Cars were far more likely to not have power steering. Instead, they employed lower range steering gear boxes and giant trash can lid steering wheels. In order to make a regular old 90 degree turn, you’d have to crank the wheel over way more than you do on a modern car, and the car was heavier, had steel wheels (more mass to move).
They continue to teach it today, because if your car loses power and/or shuts off (ICE cars especially, not impossible with EVs) or the power steering otherwise fails while you’re moving, you’re really going to want to know how to hand over hand steer. It’s much more difficult to steer a car with power steering that’s dead/broken than a car that just doesn’t have power steering at all. Why they still demand it for drivers’ tests on every turn, I don’t know. You should be able to demonstrate that you can do it, but hand over hand steering on essentially every car today is more clumsy, as long as everything is working properly.
e:
If you mime driving a car, do you put your hands at 10 and 2? No, you’ll probably do 9 and 3.
Only if that’s the standard you were taught, and the cars that you learned to drive were ones where that made more sense. I mean, just look where Toonces puts his paws.
I had a Chevy S10 without power steering and man steering that thing at low speeds was such a bitch (such as when you’re trying to do a three point turn). You get a real workout every time you drive. So grateful power steering is in all cars nowadays.
Why didn’t you fix the power steering? I’m pretty sure they were all built with it.
We had a 70s F-350 flatbed with no power steering for hauling stuff around the farm. Actually driving the truck was as much of a workout as loading the bed
Yeah … There was a weird in between time where there were still some small vehicles without p/s, but they were still using similar steering boxes or racks, and the same smaller steering wheel. I’m pretty sure that rack and pinion steering is more difficult without power assist, too, or because a different enough gearing would change the packaging, need too much room, increase design/production/manufacture costs too much - they just went fuck it and removed p/s without changing anything else because “good enough”.
I don’t remember whether the S10 had rack and pinion or pitman arm style.
Nothing like a technical discussion of automotive steering history without a reference to Toonces.
If we’re going there, let me tell you about tillers.
This is the kind of excited spew of hyperfixated knowledge that only those touched by the tism could produce.
My wife is the NT in a house full of NDs, so she has some inkling of what it’s like to be us.
Hand over hand is better for ensuring you have a grip that can go either direction if something pulls on your wheels suddenly, like in slippery conditions. It isn’t necessary to pull it like climbing the rope in gym class with power steering, but awkward hand positions can lead to loss of control.
Yup, exactly this.
Coached race cars (and bikes) at tracks for years, and amateur raced for more than a decade.
Try just pushing (not pulling). You have a LOT more range and more comfortable control from 9/3 than 10/2
Amateur hour itt…
Lol you need an assistive device? Just use the palm of your hand, scrub.
But that’s busy smackin yo mama
10 and 2 (and now 9 and 3, though to a lesser extent) is just a visual indicator of what drivers you need to be extra wary of when they’re around you
not all 9&3s are, but pretty much all 10&2s
and the 9&3s you don’t have to worry about are very easy to identify, because they’re not driving 53 in a 60 designed for 80km/h, unable to stay straight in the lane, and not staring dead ahead with dead eyes
Drying a dinner plate was how my teacher described turning. Starting with both hands opposite (10/2 or 9/3 would work fine) - push with one hand and slide the other one towards it until they meet at the top, then switch which hand is holding and reverse the motion, so you end up doing both, but you never cross your hands.
You’re all wrongz left hand 1:00 that’s the correct way.
It’s mainly for better control of the vehicle. At 9 and 3, you can pull the steering wheel straight down to turn.
Source: I teach advanced performance driving.
In a modern car, yes.
Not many people are still driving cars from the 70’s.
I elucidated in another comment.
e: Rereading that comment, maybe the connection didn’t make much sense. In older cars, 10/2 was a better starting place for doing hand over hand, because if you wanted to turn (say) left, you’d start by pulling your left hand down and right hand left. Then remove your left hand, pull down with the right while grabbing over with your left. Switch hands, left pulls down, switch, right pulls down.
Starting with hands at 9/3 means you would have less on that first down pull with the left, and have to push up with the right. When every normal turn required hand over hand steering, 10/2 was more sensible.
I was always taught that it was 10 and 2 in older cars mainly because they had much larger diameter steering wheels, and 9 and 3 would just be too wide so you had less leverage to turn the wheel.
I thought the risk was degloving.
Yeah, I can see that, too. Definitely more than one additional injury risk that is easily mitigated by changing hand position habits. Totally makes sense that they changed the way driving is taught.
Keep your thumbs out of the center too
My driving instructor said the airbag could rip the skin off your arms lol
Can confirm
Til they updated the standard.
That is the updated standard.
I thought the updated standard was adjusted for daylight savings time, making it 2100 and 0300.
I got thrown of thinking they meant 'til, but they mean TIL= Today I Learned
*7 and 5
Less arm fatigue and safer with air bags.
With better control the airbags won’t go off.
9:30 and 2:30 is optimal and hands are to the side for an accident.
I vote for: 2:47:18.987 and 9:51:43.051
Makes you concentrate on driving! /s
i too have a digital protractor on my steering wheel
Just buy a racing wheel with hand position marks on it.
6 using 1 knee because hands busy with food and phone. Driving beemer so I dont need to bother with turn signals. Leaving brights on for safety
With better control the airbags won’t go off.
You can have the best control in the world and still get rear-ended, T-boned, or otherwise crashed into by someone else. Defensive driving isn’t 100% crash-proof and shit happens, my friend. There’s a lot of dumb people on the road.
No it’s not.
Thought they were teaching 7 and 4 now? Due to airbags I’d heard.
just go with 0 and 0 with a knee on the wheel.
Ain’t nothing stopping me from eating my burrito.
7 and 4 isn’t even centered
You also need to keep in mind thumb placement. If you have a vice grip on the steering wheel with your thumb and forefinger wrapping the wheel, you’ll get your thumbs ripped off/sprained in a crash.
That’s more for mad offroading, because the weight of the vehicle over terrain can lever the front wheels quickly enough to spin the wheel. Not impossible, but far less likely on pavement, even in any crash.
No.
Iirc that’s for long drives
Sounds annoying to drive with your hands to the side
No, it is the proper way to drive. That is why the signals are at the side, so you can operate them without moving your hands.
Steering stalks on my 2015 car are at 10/2.
Proper way sounds annoying. I prefer to have my hands further up, easier to rest them. I can still reach blinker/wiper though, just extend a finger
Why do better when you can be stubborn.
I was just said it seems annoying lol
Does anyone have the original of the dad doge
Gonna need it so I can use it as a reaction lol
Did some digging and found these:
A zoomed in screenshot from this meme
a cutout of the doge edit
and what I assume was the original source image
Original is still edited. Pretty sure someone put human eyes on him to make it more uncanny
Goat
Thanks
No joke I took my driving test in a random minivan because my dad wrecked his car that I practiced in in a DUI
No wonder I don’t like driving lol
Sad that the default of the current world is “can you drive?”
Mate, I can barely hold a conversation with people Ive worked with for 3+ years. How am I going to communicate via flashing lights to strangers, while driving a 1000kg hunk of metal at 50kph?
I think I can contribute to society. (I haven’t been fired yet. So I must be doing something right) but must I be cut out of social weekend events, or anything after 6pm, JUST because i cant drive?
Well there’s always Uber and public transportation but both of those can be inconvenient at times. Someday I will get better at driving to get my own car though
Thumbs up on the wheel, not around it. Again, due to airbags.
I’ve been forcing my thumbs up for years for nothing?!?! It looks like having your thumbs directly on the airbag is bad news but I was sure I’d have broken thumbs with my hands at 10 and 2.
What? I’m pretty sure that’s complete BS and the thumb is probably the least of your problems when the airbags deploy
Yes,because dad cool, mom uncool.
Funny sexism from the 50s.
It goes deeper than that, too.
Pop culture painting dads as irresponsible parents comes from the idea that women are natural caregivers while men are just boys who work. It’s a cultural bias that still affects legislation and custody rulings, and why it’s a goddamn fight to get changing table in men’s public washrooms.
Funny drunk dad meme is just the scum on the surface of a shitty lake.
Yes because dad criminal, mom not criminal
Sweet sexism.
::: NOT EVERTHING IS FUCKING SEXISM, THE MEME WAS ABOUT DRUNK DADS :::
Yes, it perpetuates the harmful stereotype that only men can have addiction issues. Gender stereotypes are harmful to all genders.
That’s putting it a bit abrasively, but there’s a nugget of truth there.
An anecdote: I saw some (drug?) commercial where the wife orders pizza because the Dad’s a bumbling idiot for even attempting to use the kitchen. Everything about the way it was presented just screamed… ‘50s sexism,’ basically?
Unfuckable comment
