the title pretty much says it all,
I am trying to find out how to get a car with both left and right side steering controls. while I know its unusual I also know its possible, what I dont know is the proper search terms
Dual controls
Dual steering
2 steering wheels
and many variants of the above all fail to get me what I am looking for which is
Are you suggesting a modern car with this setup? The problem you’re having is that it probably doesn’t exist. There’s no need for one as an instructor tool because it is within reach (unlike the pedals which are set up as a dual system).
When I took driving lessons, the car had dual controls. Mind you that was about 30 years ago, but cars haven’t changed that much. I don’t know how to find them, though.
Very few specialty vehicles have dual steering wheels, eg street sweepers. Some others, like the Mercedes Unimog, have a single steering wheel that can be moved at either side.
Two reasons leap to mind
A) Very limited market to spread the (not cheap) development expenses over making the unit cost very very high.
B) [Thinks about the mechanics of such a system and the amount of real estate available under the average dash]
::: Shudder::: No place to put it [/TATMOSASATAOREAUTAD]
They used to. I think about 20 years ago they realized the driving instructor didn’t need his own steering wheel, just brakes. So they changed over to that to save expense.
Go to a dealership and ask them about it. When I was in school, the local Chevy dealer supplied dual steering vehicles for driver’s ed. I think that changed to a dual braking system later, as said upthread so I don’t know how available dual steering would be today, but a dealer seems like the place that would know.
A friend had a car with this setup many, many years ago when he was a freelance driving instructor. I always wondered where the burden of proof would fall if a cop pulled the car over to find one of the front seat occupants shit-faced drunk and the other stone-cold sober.
well I do gotta ask what sober person would let the drunk drive in that case?
but I do know an instructor who did 30 days in jail and lost his teaching & regular license because he was teaching drunk and when they had a near miss with another driver (other drivers fault) he yanked the wheel so hard they went through a white picket fence and up into a yard.
the funny thing about this is that I dont want the second wheel for teaching with…
I’ve often wondered about this. Why wouldn’t you want a second wheel if you’re an instructor?
An instructor I know tells me that the brake pedal on the instructor’s side is usually a cable brake. That means he can press it, but can’t PULL UP on it if need be, and my friend tells me that’s sometimes the correct action.
On top of this, I’m a flight instructor. That situation is a little different, but still…
Seems like just as imperative in the driving situation to have a full set of controls. There’s more stuff to HIT on a road than up in the air!
OK, I’ll try a guess. The other place I can think where it would be convenient is in a vehicle used for something like tube route newspaper deliveries, where you pull up to roadside containers to make pickups or deliveries to them. You want to service your route without reaching across the seat each stop, or driving to and from the route with a right hand drive car.
A buddy of mine owns a driving school. On his cars it is a metal rod that goes across behind the dash, just inside the passenger compartment firewall.
He bought a new Toyota for his school, and had to take it back, as there was no room for the bar to run.
In my rural area, we have a postman and a paper delivery person (different persons), who handle the problem this way.
The postman drives a conventional sedan with a rotating yellow light on the roof, but on the correct side of the road. He sits in the passenger seat and steers the wheel on the driver’s side, leaning out the right side to put mail in boxes. I don’t know if he has a brake pedal on the passenger’s side, but he might.
The paper delivery person sits in the driver’s seat of a small car, but drives on the wrong side of the road most of the time, since the paper tubes are there. He only crosses over to the correct side if he sees a car coming and he’s in motion. If he’s not in motion, he stays parked on the wrong side until the other car passes.
So full dual or opposite-side controls don’t seem to be needed here.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a high-performance driving instructor, and since we’re instructing students in their own cars, we actually train to steer from the right seat as we drive around the race track at fairly high speed. With a little practice, it’s not that hard.
We do it so we’re prepared to help gently guide a student who hasn’t quite mastered the racing line or, if worse comes to worse, either prevent an off-track excursion or maintain control and keep an “off” from getting worse.
Although I haven’t taught complete novices how to drive, among the things I know from HPDE that I think might transfer to that situation is the fact that sometimes the most important thing an instructor can do is stop the student from steering more than he/she should. When he puts a couple wheels off the paved surface, a student’s first (bad) reaction is often to jerk the wheel to get back on the track. Firmly holding the wheel straight from the right seat, and telling the student to get off the gas and gently brake, can prevent a spin, or worse, a rollover. As with many other similar situations, this does not require a wheel on the right side, just a firm grip.
To the OP: why do you want to find a dual-control car?
While I do teach driving this is actually not related to in car teaching strangely, and I am a bit hesitant to disclose the full reason since its business related. for a business thats not yet off the ground
Okay. It seems to me, as others have said, that the vogue for driving instruction with two full sets of controls is long past. I remember seeing or hearing of such vehicles when I was a kid in the 1960s and '70s, but not so much since then.
So I’d say that your options are going to be: 1) try to find one of those really old cars, which will probably be difficult and expensive, and will yield an old car probably in need of significant work and maintenance or 2) have one made for you, which will be expensive and difficult.
If you can be very patient, there’s option 3) wait for a car maker to introduce the first steer-by-wire system that doesn’t use a direct mechanical linkage from the steering wheel to the steering rack. It should be much simpler to duplicate and relocate the steering wheel (or joystick) of such a car than any current car. Maybe some time in the next ten years.
I don’t think you’ll find a car with two steering wheels anywhere, if you really need it you’ll probably require a bespoke solution. Other dual-control setups (such as planes) exist so the “driving” can be alternated or the work-load can be shared. Steering a car isn’t something that should be done by commitee.
I don’t think so. I took driver’s ed (not in school like back in the 1970s, but with a private company) in 1995. The car for the on-the-road portion of the course did indeed have two full sets of controls, but the instructor’s controls were clearly an aftermarket job. Basically, everything was connected across to the driver’s side (cutting across like Rick described) and could mechanically override the normal set of controls.
If the OP is looking for a car with two full sets of controls that looks like it was designed to have them and not jury-rigged after the fact, they might be out of luck.
