Steering wheels are nine times dirtier than public toilet seats

Chris Shunk — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Safety

Have you ever driven a vehicle that had a sticky steering wheel? It's probably one of the most disgusting feelings there is, and a report in IBN Live shows that the adhesive can be more than just grape jelly. Researchers at Queen Mary University in London claim that there are, on average, 700 different kinds of bacteria per square inch of steering wheel. That compares to 80 distinct bacteria types on a public toilet seat. Even worse, the trunk has 1,000 bacteria types per square inch. The most common form of bacteria was bacillus cereus, which can cause food poisoning.

The reason cars are filthy is simple; we simply don't clean them. While we vacuum, dust and disinfect our home on a semi-regular basis, only one third of study participants cleaned their vehicle once a year or more. That sounds pretty crazy (and a bit lazy), but think about it. You may jettison the trash and vacuum the carpet on a somewhat regular basis, but how often do you wipe down that nasty steering wheel? And when you think about how many Americans regularly eat in their vehicles, our cars could be a solid reason why we are sick as often as we are. Now we know why valet parking attendants tend to wear white gloves.

Beyond cleanliness, the study also shows that many drivers know next to nothing about their vehicles. For example, two-thirds of us don't know how to change a tire, while one third of those surveyed don't even know how to put air in the tires. It's a sad, sad world.

[Source: IBN Live | Image: Zach Bowman/AOL]

Steering wheels are nine times dirtier than public toilet seats originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

States start paying people to buy new, cleaner cars

Jeremy Korzeniewski — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:02:00 EST

Filed under: Car Buying, Government/Legal, Green, Canada

All of the clean new vehicles in the world won't amount to much if they don't replace the older, dirtier fleet of cars currently on the roads. For this reason, some U.S. states are beginning to offer programs which pay drivers to turn in their old clunkers for new, cleaner cars and trucks. In Texas, for instance, up to $3,500 is available to qualifying families which earn less than $63,000 per year in combined income and own a vehicle which fails current emissions testing. Texas was able to retire 11,000 vehicles last year alone by using this cash-based incentive. California too has begun offering a similar program, and though its $1,500 offer is a bit less generous, that state has no income restrictions.

Even our neighbors up north have plans to reduce their older vehicle fleet by one-percent starting January 1st of next year. Canada's plan would offer drivers either $300 towards a new vehicle, a discount bicycle or a bus pass, which seems a bit suck-tastic next to the program in Texas.

[Source: The Detroit News]

States start paying people to buy new, cleaner cars originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments