DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour   

It’s been decades since I noticed the logo of a Dr. Pepper bottle. I say “bottle” because the last time I did notice one they were actually bottled in glass. On the logo were the numbers 10-2-4, laid out in a triangular pattern (an “equilateral” triangle as this sea hag I had for high school geometry — the only subject I ever failed — would describe).

I suppose the gist of it was that if you had a bottle of Dr. Pepper thrice daily – at those three times – your thirst would be forever quenched. (Full disclosure: I don’t think I’ve had three bottles of Dr. Pepper in my life!)

I know what you’re thinking: “Al, what in hell does this have to do with an automotive column?” Well, hold your water; I’ll tell you. Any instructor in Driver’s Ed will tell you that you should have your hands in the “10 o’clock and 2 o’clock position on the steering wheel.”

At least that’s what I was told they said because I never took driver’s training because I learned how to drive in the back lot of my family’s junkyard when I was 10 years old. If I hit something…so what?! It was a JUNKYARD, Scotty! I often watch people when they drive and the only people I see with their hands on the wheel in the 10/2 position are either novices or those who are nervous drivers.

I would bet the aforementioned Scotty’s life that veteran and/or professional drivers do so one-handed.  Those who grip the steering wheel with two hands look like they’re afraid. It may take two hands to handle a Whopper but it does NOT take two hands to safely drive a vehicle.

Now it seems that instead of preaching a 10/2 position for “proper” wheel "holdage" the new standard seems to be gripping the steering wheel in the 9 and 3 position. Make up your damned mind, Linda; are you sure you don’t want to suggest holding the steering wheel in the 12 and 6 position? Or how about 7:37 and 4:13?

When I was a teenager and because I had a high-performance Ford that allowed me to outrun that pesky T-Rex who used to chase me down Campbell Street on the way to high school every morning, the way to look cool was to have your right hand draped over the top of the steering wheel at the wrist and your left-hand holding on to the post of the vent window (if you don’t know what a vent window is, Google it for God’s sake!).

The "10/2" technique

Oh, sure, a blown tire at a high rate of speed (the only numbers we knew at the time) would be almost a 100% assurance that you would lose control of your vehicle and probably plow in to a gym class of about 40 kids on their way to one of the town parks for their phys-ed period, racking up a death toll well into double figures. But you looked slick up to that point.

I can see a gear jammer driving a tandem-axle Kenworth or even a bus driver holding on to the wheel with two hands; the damned steering wheel is about the size of a flying saucer. But other than that (and maybe a tractor tilling a field of rutabagas) there are not many vehicles that require the use of two hands to drive. Do you think the one-armed man that Dr. Richard Kimble chased for the better part of a decade in the popular television show “The Fugitive” walked everywhere he went? Of course not. He often times drove. What did he do, stop off at “Hands Are Us” and buy one to use when he was driving? Get real, Camden.

The entire reason behind writing this column wasn’t to turn something in to my editor this week no matter how stupid the topic. Au contraire as they say in French Lick, Indiana. It’s to illustrate the hypocrisy of strict adherence to the beliefs of one set of people who only feel comfortable holding on to a steering wheel for dear life with two hands as opposed to realists who do whatever they’re comfortable with. Since the 1960s there hasn’t been a vehicle manufactured that doesn’t have a clock; and ever since the 18th century there has never been a clock that’s located on a steering wheel.

Finally, think of this if you don’t mind thinking of this; a hamburger is round like a steering wheel; aren’t you going to feel like an ass holding it in the 10 o’clock and 2-o’clock position to eat it? Get a life, people!