Where are they placed on a steering wheel?
Top? Bottom? Left side? Right?
In the fifties, on the East coast, I knew them as “necker knobs”. IIRC, they were usually at about the 10 o’clock position.
Suicide doors, suicide cluthes…yessiree.
Necker knobs on the west coast in the fifties at about ten o’clock as well.
Windowsills on some of that vintage big iron were often wide comfortable shelfs that accepted any part of the arm equally well. General straight-line motorvatin’ merely required minor manipulation of the knob without really disturbing the overall pleasure of the drive.
They are now illegal in many states.
Murdercycles once had suicide clutches.
What is a suicide knob?
This is a suicide knob. It’s illegal in most places.
Thanks for the answers, people!
Sorry. That link had “malformed syntax”.
Click here and scroll down.
“suicide link” huh?
quick exit
SLAM!
I went to the link and I still don’t get exactly what they do…
My Dad used to talk about them. They are mounted on the steering wheel, and allow you to turn the wheel harder and faster than you’d otherwise be able to. And all with one hand.
The devices tended to be about the size of a door knob. The knob could rotate freely on a bushing of sorts. The intent was that rather than “hand over hand” the steering wheel, particularly at low speed or for a tight turn, one used the knob for a steady application of force. Some claimed to gain a bit of mechanical advantage when using one.
The primary reason they were outlawed, and one of the reasons the term “suicide knob” came about, was because it was not at all unusual for the open slit, up the arm from the button/s at the cuff of long-sleeved shirts to become engaged with the knob. Police reports in the 50’s and early 60’s sometimes included that the driver involved in some form of accident, admitted to having become entangled in this manner.
I should point out that these knobs are fairly common on the steering wheels tractors and other industrial machinery. They aren’t street legal but they are useful when you’ve got a cranky machine with no power steering, trying to navigate through some mud. The web page cited is obviously selling them to farmers.
What Chas.E. said is correct. All the tractors that my family owns have a suicide knob. I think our combine does too but I’m not sure right now. It does make turning a lot easier. The only one I have ever seen used on a vehicle is one that a friend of mine added to his jeep.
In the days of non-power steering in large and unwieldy (sp) cars (Packards, Hudsons, Studebakers, GM, Cryslers, etc) they were considered a big help.
Besides catching on sleeves (which was the primary problem) I remember people in casts in those days because there was always a chance of the nob, as it spun around on the steering wheel, hitting the hand or wrist just right and breaking it (the human apendage not the steering wheel’s).
Called “necker nobs” because in the days before bucket seats your girl could slide over next to you on the front seat and you could drive with the left hand on the nob and your right hand, well…, occupied with more pleasant tasks with your your date (“necking” meant “making out” to a number of generations in the early and mid-20th century).
Ahhh, yes. Suicide knobs. I’d almost forgotten about them. My grandfather had only one arm so those knobs were really a necessity for him. The ones he had were much prettier than those shown on the link. They were more like paperweights with flowers and other designs worked into the glass.
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- In the US, suicide knobs are legal for vehicles registered as owned by handicapped persons without the use of their legs. In that case it’s steer with the left hand, control throttle/brake with right hand. There’s special lever kits you have installed, and come to think of it, I dunno if the levers are illegal for normal folks’ cars or not. I haven’t ever seen them on any non-handicapped person’s auto, but then they are somewhat complicated to install and they take up a fair amount of interior room. - MC
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