Well, seating position is dependant on what you're comfortable with, as long as you get a perfect view with arm length so you're not stretching, as well as the legs, then you're fine.


I'm not sure about the airbag part but to my knowledge, it's not recommented to stretch out any part of your body both arms and legs when driving because if you do that, you don't have enough room to manuver in an emergency situation. For example, if the car is going sideways where you have to hold yourself in the seat, but your arms are stretched, it'll be more difficult turn the wheel etc. Probably not the best example but this should help somewhat. Let me know if I'm wrong though, this is just from my understanding anyways.

 

I suppose everyone is different, but I need my arms outstretched, but far from locked--too short to reach and handle the clutch if I'm "lowriding." The visibility out the front of the 8 is great, but as someone else noted, the sides are high--can't be down too low. Also, sitting as straight up as you find comfortable is a lot better for your back--take it from a ruptured disc expert (namely, me).

 

As long as you get the proper "lean".. there's no need to low ride...

 

At any racing or driving school, the first lesson is how to properly position yourself in the car and properly set the mirrors.

The best position to drive is:

- Seat as high as is practical - places you higher in the "greenhouse" and gives you a better view out. Practical as in "comfortable" - you don't want your head hitting the headliner, and you want to be able to see all the instruments.

- Seatback as upright as possible - if you ever sat in a proper racing seat, you'd understand this - upright gives you the best position possible for the seatbelts to work right in a collision and positions you better for driving.

- Distance - arms should have a comfortable bend in them, but not be crowded. Legs should have a comfortable bend - you should be able to put the clutch all the way to the floor without locking your knee joint, or even coming close to locking it. Setting for the clutch will give you the perfect overall distance.

Ever see how most race drivers sit in enclosed cars? (i.e. not in F1 or Indy cars - open cockpits in those cars and the overall low height of them dictate a reclined seating position.

Look like a driver, not an idiot.

 

Driver position is just common sense for responsible drivers. What's the first thing you do when you jump in to drive a car that isn't yours? You adjust the seats first, then the mirrors, the wheel tilt/extension if necessary, check to ensure you're positioned to minimize the blind spot....duh. Why do we need a user manual here...people who position themselves for "cool" are the farthest from it.

 

Like the others said - it doesn't really matter how upright the seatback is. What matters is being able to reach and press the pedals fully without having to stretch your legs, and being able to operate the steering wheel without having to stretch.

The guideline to set your seatback so that your wrist can sit on the top of the steering wheel without moving your shoulders from the seatback is pretty close to ideal, IMHO. In other words, you need to be able to turn the steering wheel quickly without having to reach or stretch. For most people, that guideline will have them sitting closer than they're used to, but it provides the best control and feel for accurate, precise steering.

Regards,
Gordon

 

More natural selection in action. Not only are these guys more likely to lose control of their cars, but they're going to submarine under the lapbelt and lose any benefit of the airbag. If they've got enough speed, they'll munch their legs and lacerate their livers in the process. Just hope that they hit poles instead of the rest of us.

 

I sit reclined--I'm 5'11" so I like a reclined posture. Its funny to see folks with the seat laid so far back that they are looking out of the back window. Or the seat laid all the way back but you hunch over the steering wheel with one hand. I had a friend that crashed his Grand Cherokee one time--the airbag went off but didn't reach him because he was laying so far back in the seat. :D

 

If I had the power, no kids younger than 18 would be allowed to drive.

 

I'm 6'2", 215, and my seat is more like Abbid's passenger seat. I thought that the seat all the way back thing came primarily from rap videos, but the gangbanger thing is probably where they got it.

 

Here's a link on seating position.
Take it from a successful professional race car driver.

http://www.johnnyoconnell.com/tips1.html

 

I worked for TRW, we supplied to the auto world manufactures, at this time(1993-1999) about 78% of the worlds airbags. Body posistion at the time of an accident is critical to your surviability. Posistion yourself to close to the steering wheel, and you'll feel the exit speed (200mph)- of that bag in 1/63 of a second, kiss your face, not softly. In a supine posistion, frontal impacts (assume bag deployment at about 13 mph), will cause, what we call- "Out of body Posistion" deployment, causing forces to transmit up the legs, instead of abosorbing these energy forces, directly into the spinal column-not good for future maneuverability.
Driving in this posistion is stupid, increasing insurance costs for all of us.

 

I hate seeing lowriders in school, coz it's so pathetic when they step out of their vehicle. 5' - 5'8" guys shouldn't be doing that. It's just stupid that they're even too small for the proper position yet they are low riding just to look cool. Oh there's another fad going on amongst them, it's where they drive leaning way to the center of the car so that from the outside they look like they are sitting in the middle. F'n stupid, that's what I call it.

I don't normally look at the drivers when I'm on the road, but I can't help but notice these idiotic driving positions because most of them can't drive really well because of it. So they tend to shift lanes almost hitting something or some car or they take really wide turns coz they can't estimate their turns properly. Especially that middle-sitting position, their car tends to shift to the right side most of the time and you can notice how they constantly have to adjust getting back to the center. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

 

My neighbor's kid was doing this about a year ago. I told his parents about the gang origin and also a little about safety. (their kid had already totalled 3 cars). Dad borrowed the kid's car and had the driver's seat welded vertical. Coincidentally, he hasn't had an accident since.

 

You should be able to get a ticket sitting in a car like that. And since when was this cool? Maybe to the 16-yr. old set, but when most people grow up, they get some common sense.

 

LMFAO that's outstanding! :D

 

Low riding is kind of pointless in newer style cars any way. Cars such as the Rx-8 and Chrysler 300c, the dodge magnum and countless others all have really tall doors. By that I mean the ratio of sheet metal to window is seems to have gotten higher anyway. In essence it makes you look like you are low riding anyway.

 

Someone on the previous page put up "why do we need a manual here?"

It's because someone appears to be an attention ***** and keeps putting up stupidass threads.

 

I think the "proper position" thing has been covered but I wanted to make a few points:

1. The "gang" origins seems somewhat credible. If you're ever shot at in the driver's seat, the B-pillar is your only protection. A lot of people do it because no one can see the driver's face. Kind of like front side window tints? The posture also looks confident and relaxed. Given the situation, however (i.e. the fact that someone is operating a motor vehicle) it makes a driver look stupid in the eyes of many.

2. I saw it a done a lot back when I lived in Detroit, mainly in crappy cars. Maybe because tints cost $? Maybe because people don't like to be seen in crappy cars? Either way, you look "cool" enough driving an 8. Why wouldn't you want to be seen?

3. My seat in my old SUV was so far back that it almost looked like I was low-riding but it's mainly b/c I am pretty tall. In my manual 8, I keep my seat pretty darn far forward since I work the pedals a lot more. Doing anything to impair your ability to work the stick is just dumb.

4. The way I drive, anything that would impair my ability to control my vehicle would be dumb.

5. Ignore your friends. Be an independent thinker. In retrospect, you'll feel a lot better about yourself.

6. Wait, didn't you say that one of your friends RAN INTO A POLE WHILE LOWRIDING?!?!?!?!? What kind of idiot would make fun of someone else after something like that happens? That type of incident is supposed to be a wakeup call to your whole crew. When they have jokes how hard is it to remind them that someone ran into a pole doing that nonsense?

 

With our RX8's "down under", Mazda have kindly given us a complementary attendance of a defensive driving course. The guy who took ours has a lot of involvement with accident investigations and he was telling us that in high speed accidents, they have found some horrendous fatalities of people who have been in the low rider position. This is because the seat and seatbelt (mandatory to wear in Australia) are designed to operate in unison by the seat being in the correct position. In the low rider position the body is not restrained, goes under the seat belt, ends up in the footwell, and occasionally their head is actually decapitated by the seat belt.

 

I see nothing wrong with that- just Darwin weeding out the morons.