Steering-Wheels

My most recent issue of Classic Car magazine, December 2017, prompted an interesting thought.
A columnist noted the steering-wheel was invented. Indeed it was. Steering-wheels became so common I took ‘em for granted.
Driving = “behind the wheel.”
Go back to the earliest days, and cars were steered by tillers. Until one day in 1900 James and William Packard were out exercising one of their creations, they hit a pothole, and the tiller smacked William in the knee.
They asked an engineer back at their factory to come up with something better — less injurious — and VIOLA, the steering-wheel.
Everything I’ve driven, cars anyway, had a steering-wheel. I’m 1944, not 19th century.
Even my first riding lawnmower, a John Deere, had a steering-wheel. Not my current zero-turn.
The steering-wheel put distance between the driver and potholes. Hit a pothole and the wheel might kick you. But not like a tiller.
Since 1900 steering advanced by leaps-and-bounds.
The first leap might be power-steering.
I avoided power-steering at first; it was vague or dead.
My first vehicle with power-steering was our E250 Ford van. It was used; it came that way.
It probably needed it. It had a gigantic heavy 460 under its hood. Still vague, but not bad.


Somewhere in SD. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Now everything has power-steering. When I first started driving buses, they didn’t. But about 1979 we started getting power-steered buses.
If you didn’t get one, and had a route with many sharp turns, no power-steering wore you out.
Our first car with power-steering was probably our 2003 Honda CR-V.
There were a couple cars after the E250, but none with power-steering.
By 2003 power-steering was hardly noticeable. Vagueness was gone, as was arduous cranking.
My current car has power-steering. If it’s off the effort is tremendous. Same with power-brakes.
I climb in and confront the steering-wheel: leather-wrapped with airbag incorporated.
A friend had a ’49 Ford hotrod. It’s steering-wheel was on a long steel rod waiting to impale your chest. I know, because we took it apart.
Scared me to death! NO WAY could I ever crack 100 behind that steel rod. (And seat-belts = ARE YOU KIDDING?)
Now that shaft incorporates a collapsable section — not so scary.
And who woulda known that steering-wheel was invented to save knees!

• My riding-mower is a 48-inch “zero-turn:’ “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that 11 years ago.