Suicide Knobs

[Dennis Markham]

The earlier discussion of the A1 with a "suicide knob" prompted me to go look on eBay to see if there were any there.  Of course, there are many.  Here are just a few.

I just searched "suicide knob" and pages of them popped up.

These photos are courtesy of eBay seller 50stuf.

The original A1 posting is here:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=2273.0

[Wallphone]

Even back in the 60's I heard that they were illegal but I never knew why. This is what Yahoo Answers says.
> http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090822101527AAMGiB4 <
Dougpav

[McHeath]

Yah they are illegal here in California and have been for decades.  Back in the late 80's I worked parking control for a PD up in the northern part of the state, we had one of those three wheel scooter cart thingies for marking tires and general putting about doing our duties.  It had a suicide knob on the wheel and it was very handy, made it a lot easier to control when your other arm had to be on the chalk stick.  Of course it was illegal, but no one ever said anything.

Later we found out that we were supposed to have a motorcycle lic to drive the cart, and wear a helmet, so we transitioned to a small PU with the doors removed and the steering wheel on the right. 

I was one of those annoyingly zealous idealistic guys who wrote tickets for every single violation I could find, geesh, I sure must have irritated a lot of folks. 

[AET]

I think this law is dumb personally.  If you want one, it should be your decision.  Everyone is always on the "It's my body" kick these days.  Well don't you have the right to your body to put it at that risk if you want, same goes for seatbelts.  Now, personally, I never leave the driveway without mine on. 

I would really had liked to have one in my Bel-Air, makes manual steering much easier.  But I woulda smacked it when I totalled that car.

[foots]

  I find those knobs pretty useful on the 18 wheelers at work. On the older manual steering vehicles, the steering wheel diameter was usually pretty big and usually provides enough leverage that I really don't need one.