A pain in the neck — when headrests became head restraints

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DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour      

I vividly recall auto seats when I was growing up and as I got taller how uncomfortable they could be, especially if I were leaning back to take a nap. Sometimes my head would bob around like apples in a barrel.

Then in the year I forgot, the manufacturers developed headrests and then adjustable headrests whereas they could be set at various heights to accommodate the comfort of the passengers in the seats. Even as a young Hoosier I could see that in the event of a rear-end collision such devices would have a better chance of holding your head still and not having it snap off like an abused Pez dispenser.

Pretty soon every manufacturer had some sort of headrest. Some were adjustable, some were stationary and even some of them in luxury vehicles were power-driven. Still other manufacturers designed their sportier seats with higher backs that served the same purpose. No matter what process was used it was still relatively comfortable no matter what your height, weight or even station in life (which means absolutely nothing, but I’m often paid by the word). Life was not bad. Then headrests became head restraints.
 
Looming on the horizon were evil do-gooders who thought an even safer method of headrests (now head restraints) would be if they tilted forwards more towards your head than straight up. Technically this is true because there would be less head-toss and certainly less head-travel. However, enter a seat with these things and try putting your head back. That’s right — it hurts!
 
Your head is so far forward it feels like you’re choking. Sure, you can adjust them upwards to the point that maybe they’ll be less-intrusive. But wouldn’t that mean that perhaps in a vicious rear-end collision you’re liable to have your head squish into the opening between the bottom of the head restraint and the seat itself? “Pshaw,” you say? One doesn’t have to have a physics degree from the Sam Houston Institute of Technology to realize that cranial excess has to go somewhere! (Hard to believe I only have an Indiana education, isn’t ?)
 
Surely there has to be some better way of advanced protection for this type of collision. Instead of being attacked from behind by an errant headrest how about having an accordion-type extension that fills with air as its raised and would serve the same purpose as having the headrest itself aimed at your melon. After all, if they can put 5,723 airbags throughout the interior the manufacturers can certainly find two little balloon-type bags to make up the difference in elevation.
 
Rear seats aren’t immune from this torture, either. I’ve ridden in the back of cars, both luxury and non-luxury and in some instances the non-adjustable head restraints are so bothersome I find myself leaning to one side like I’m trying to avoid sitting on my tail or something. I often wonder just how far the human head can be shoved up an anal opening because there seems to be some sort of engineering and design academy that holds its classes in some of those locations.
 
My advice to those “academy graduates” is to spend some time living with your creations and see how you like them. I’m sure when it comes to those newer safety-angled head restraints the designers would quickly discover that they missed their calling by not moving to Mexico and opening up a design bureau for high-tech piñatas. Just because you’ve missed the mark at one place doesn’t mean there’s no other place on earth for your creativity.
 
A perfect example of that would be Ralph Ivanovich Krasczescu, a janitor at Russia’s Chernobyl nuclear plant. Fortunately for Ralph he was visiting relatives in Siberia at the time of the plant’s explosion and missed the first few days of the crisis. However, during his long trip home he experimented with, and designed a sun block with a power of 6,138,222 to help those not yet exposed much to the leaking radiation.
 
He became one of Russia’s richest human beings in history until his untimely death at the age of 23. And what did Ralph die from? No, not radiation poisoning; his product had saved his life by its power setting up a barrier between his body and radiation sickness.
 
He died from having his neck broken by the static position of the safety-impact head restraint on the new Pontiac that he’d purchased from a local Pontiac-Saturn-Mercury dealership he had invested in with some of his new found wealth. The vehicle was struck in the rear by an Eastern Bloc tractor/gravel hauler loaded with cement. Some safety measure, huh?
 
You might say that Ralph Ivanovich Krasczescu died a painful…and uncomfortable death.