Hey, why is that guy driving his tuned Honda with the steering wheel taken off? Isn't that stupid dangerous? Allow me to me explain.
Wait, so how did he get his steering wheel off like that?
That's a detachable steering wheel. Race cars have them so that drivers can fit into their seats over the jungle gym bars of a roll cage. Road cars have them because they look cool and they act as a reasonably good theft-deterrent device. Just take the wheel off when you park.
Yeah, but what you're talking about is when the cars aren't moving.
Exactly. You tend not to take them off while driving because hey, that's a terrible idea.
How can he drive at all without the wheel attached?
Let me say that cars, especially cars that have their engines in the front and have front wheel drive, are actually pretty stable in a straight line. That's their natural tendency. So if you take your hands off the wheel on a perfectly smooth, perfectly level road, the car would track true.
It's the same thing when you take the steering wheel off altogether. The car is going to want to go straight, which is exactly what you're seeing here.
Huh.
The thing is, no road is perfectly smooth or perfectly flat or perfectly straight. If you have taken your steering wheel off and you hit a bump, or someone swerves in front of you, you're shit outta luck.
I think you know that this sounds stupid dangerous.
Yes. I know this, you know this, the guys in these Civics know this. We all know it's stupid and dangerous. That's why it looks cool.
But wait, what's the problem with just a few guys doing this?
The problem is it looks so cool everyone will want to be doing it.
This means that every seventeen year old with a detachable steering wheel is going to want to see how long they can go without the wheel attached. This will work well for most people, except for you dipshit when your buddy is riding shotgun and you go one minute too long and oh hey, there's a car cutting you off and you can't turn because you don't even have a steering wheel.
Is this the first time somebody's driven around like this?
Not quite. The above shot is from back in 2007 on the Honda-Tech forum, but the three new pics of the black and blue Civic with Texas plates are the first good pictures we've seen. It looks like they first popped up on the Corvette Forum yesterday.
Um, aren't like, a lot of people going to be driving soon?
Yup. It's Spring, so you could say it's just becoming driving season. And school is going to get out in not too long.
So I can look forward to some kid with a Monster tattoo crashing into me on the highway. Great.
I feel like I shouldn't have to tell you this, world, but don't drive without a steering wheel.
(Hat tip to Boxer_4!)
Photo Credit: Imgur