Motorists’ Jerky Steering Motions Examined
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Brian Jackson/iStock/Thinkstock(GOTHENBURG, Sweden) — “Steady as she goes” should especially apply to maneuvering the steering wheel of a car. Yet, a lot of motorists tend move their hands on the wheel with what can only be described as an inexplicable jerkiness.
It’s not exactly the safest way to drive and probably makes people watching in the passenger seat a little nervous.
So researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden set out to discover why this happens and their best theory is an innate behavior people have whenever they reach for something with their hand.
The researchers based their findings on 1,000 hours of vehicle driving that resulted in 1.3 million steer corrections, about 95 percent corresponding to the reaching theory.
The goal now is to create safety systems in cars that will anticipate jerkiness before it happens to keep vehicles on the straight and narrow.
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