Just about everyone has probably seen it. Yet ironically, no appropriate images of it as an example really exist anywhere on the internet that I can find. The above image is the closest thing I can find that comes remotely near representing it. But not a day goes by where I don’t see someone driving their car in this seemingly pose that I’m wagering that anyone who looks around would also see on a very regular basis.
The pose is almost always a male; right hand at the 10 o’clock position on the steering wheel. Their left arm is resting on either their left thigh or the arm rest of the driver’s side door, elbow bent, with their hand floating inches from their nose/mouth, but not actually touching it. Fingers are curled. And almost always, the seat is reclined back beyond a typical angle, and it almost looks like the only thing keeping the driver upright is the fact that their right arm is gripping the steering wheel at an unorthodox angle.
If you can visualize this description, this is where it sinks in that you may or may not have noticed seeing people driving like this before, or like me, regularly.
Why do people drive like this? It’s not the least bit comfortable, I’ve tried sitting like that, to seek the answer to this inquiry myself, but I just can’t do it. Just trying to keep upright would cause me to steer the wheel in unsafe directions at unsafe intervals.
And frankly, it looks stupid. It looks like the driver is hyper-aware that their breath must stink and they’re always in a state of breathing into a partially cupped hand to examine for themselves. Or, they’re habitual nail-biters who always want to have their fix just inches away at any given time. And the fact that the act of sitting like this often times leads to the driver hunched over to a hard left into the door, it looks like they’re deliberately trying to minimize visibility of themselves, as if they were up to no good. Or, they’re extremely worried that when they make right turns, they risk flipping, so they’re always in a state of weight compensation on the left side like in Speed.
The worst part is if there actually is a passenger in the car with people that drive like this. In terms of body language, nothing say “I want nothing more than to be as far as humanly possible from you” than smashing your entire body against the driver’s side door while you’re driving.
I just don’t get it, and would like some answers. It’s not really necessarily one of those “oh danny, you such a racist” observations, because I’ve seen wiggers and Hispanics that drive like this too. But in all seriousness, it’s a seemingly very inefficient and less than safe way to be operating a motor vehicle, and I am legitimately curious to why just so many people do it.
