Nowadays, there are a great variety of driving aids designed to help people overcoming almost any physical limitation and hence keeping their mobility independence. This article will focus on explaining the most popular hand controls and steering grips available in the market in an effort of assisting you in understanding how they work and what are their benefits.
Hand Controls
As the name implies, hand controls allow users to entirely operate the vehicle using only their hands. This type of driving aid is aimed at users with a partial or total limitation on their legs. In practice, what hand controls do is relocating the brake and/or accelerator pedals on the steering wheel either mechanically or electronically.
Currently, the most widely used hand controls are the following:
Right angle: this is arguably the most popular hand control available, and for a good reason. The right angle system is simple, practical, and requires little effort from the driver. Right angle hand control uses a mechanical linkage attached to a lever in the steering wheel that has a dual-function if you push it towards the floor it applies the brakes and if you move it downward, at the right angle, it will operate the accelerator. Most right angle systems use a “safety lock” that blocks the accelerator function to avoid accidental usage when the car is driven by another person. This hand control system is many times accompanied by a removable spinner knob that eases the driving even more.
Push/Rock: the push/rock hand control is only second in popularity to right angle mechanisms. This system is widely used mainly because of its flexibility and ease of use. The user only needs to push forward the lever for brake and rock back for gas. Similar to the right angle hand control, all push/rock systems come with a manual lock that prevents users from accidentally accelerating the vehicle.
Push/Pull: another versatile hand control is the push/pull system. It combines some functional elements from the right angle hand control and the push/rock hand control systems to create a unique solution. The push/pull requires the user to push forward the handle for braking and pull it back for gas. The novelty of the push/pull is that it uses a shortened handle (like the right angle hand control) which allows the user to maintain both hands on the wheel while driving. This special handle greatly reduces the amount of moving components when doing the acceleration function. As you may guess, the push/pull system also has the security lock mechanism to prevent unintentionally applying the acceleration pedal.
Brake only: as the name implies the brake only system allows the user to apply the brakes using a mechanical linkage. This hand control system is designed for users with mobility in the right foot, in other words, they only need a driving aid for braking. Similar to prior hand controls, pushing forward the lever will apply the brakes.
Steering Grips
Hand controls are designed to help users with limited leg mobility. In contrast, steering grips allow one-hand operation of the steering wheel. The combination of both systems (hand controls, and steering grips) provides the driver with the ability to use one hand for braking/accelerating and the other for steering.
There are many kinds of steering grips, but the following are the most widely used ones:
Tri-Pin: this popular steering grip provides a superb grip over the wheel with minimal effort for the wrist when making turns. The key advantage of tri-pin grips is the stability and security while steering, since its almost impossible to lose grip.
Steering Ball: the steering ball or spinner knob, is another common grip system. Even when it does not offer the stability and security of tri-pin grips, the steering ball has the edge on simplicity. Most spinner knobs can be removed to allow other users to drive comfortably, which is very convenient if sharing the car with a relative or friend.