Get with the times: You're driving all wrong

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/21/10795756-get-with-the-times-youre-driving-all-wrong

3/22/2012
By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com

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.

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