I just realized it…I haven’t seen a car with these in years.
When I was a kid, every old geezer had these things on his car.
For those wondering what i am talking about, curb feelers were spring loaded metal roads, that were attached to the lower side of car bumpers.They would scrape along the curbstone when the car was beeing parked, thus warning the old geezer that he was about to scrape the curb. Some of them were elaborate-with little plastic flags on the ends, and some were lighted.
By the way, do they still make steering wheel spinner knobs?
Suicide knobs? Yep.
I’ve seen these on handicap equipped cars, but they looked better quality than the old Pep Boys style.
Peace,
mangeorge
I was going to say – they still make them so that people with certain kinds of disabilities can still drive.
i think the curb feelers where important when people had white walls.
The steering wheel knobs are also called “spinners” and are quite common on tractors. On a tractor it is not usual practice to let the wheel return to straight by spinning in your hands, as it is in a car, but it IS common to have to turn the wheel several revolutions in a short period of time, for example while stopped. If you have a blade in front that you can force downward to lift the front wheels off the ground, or if you are fancy and have power steering, spinners are very useful indeed.
I think they would still be important for prevention of scuffing your wheels/hubcaps, but of course they look cheesy.
The main reason spinners are common on tractors is that, the driver/operator will very often be looking back at whatever implement is being pulled by the tractor.
Holding the steering wheel with one hand via a spinner makes it much easier, as it is very difficult to turn a steering with two hands while trying to look back, although all modern tractors now have power steering which makes it easier.
Growing up on the farm, all our tractors were equiped with spinners.
I forgot about tractors. I’m pretty every tractor I’ve seen had a suicide knob. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one on a long haul truck. Haven’t been in that many semis though.
I put a suicide knob on my car. It has a manual transmission and it’s much easier to grab the knob and steer with one hand when I have to shift rapidly. Think parallel parking.
Those long solo journeys must fly by nowadays…