Driving gloves [A Bug's Life]

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Driving gloves - what are they for? Warmth? Better grip? More cushioned grip? Style? Outmoded cultural convention? Do you wear them?

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There are 20 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

If you're so clever, you tell me what colour they should be.

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Black. :)

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I wear them iff it's fscking cold in the car - otherwise the steering wheel's pretty unpleasant until the car's warmed up a bit.

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My car is mostly nice and warm, which is why I was wondering - but though the vent by the window side of the wheel gives me warm air, the one in the middle gives cold, so I have warm right fingers and cold left fingers. I could get a Michael Jackson style single glove.

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I wasn't aware these were still a thing, I've only seen them on How I Met Your Mother :) I had them down to a combination of "warmth" and "cultural convention", although I like retro enough I wasn't prepared to call them outmoded. I felt very organised for having gloves for *cycling*, I've normally just lived with a cold steering wheel, although if I lived somewhere colder they might be a necessity.

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Mostly not needed with modern vehicles. Older vehicles used to have hard plastic moulded steering wheels which provided less grip and more irritation to the skin (combined with being very cold to the touch in the winter). For long distance drivers in the 70s I suspect they were really needed. steering wheel covers were also possible, but perhaps too expensive?

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In the '70s? More like (IMHO) the '20s, and the 30's (when I was a child, and when few or no automobiles had heating). Since then... I don't recall ever knowing anyone who used them, in my geographical & social sphere in the U.S.

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The answer to "What should I get Daddy for Christmas?" in late 70s/early 80s was often "a new pair of driving gloves". Maybe your fancy American cars were better than ours.

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I've always mocked people who got their male relations such presents, but having removed the ice from the car two days in a row with my UL membership card, I begin to wonder, :-) .

Never sure about driving gloves myself. I kind of suspect Nigel Farage wears them for some reason, but nobody else. I'd be worried that my hands would slip at the wrong moment. When you're steering you feed the wheel through your hands by friction and stuff (I suspect this is one of the things youre told not to do!) and the exact rate is kind of important. Badly fitting driving gloves could be a disaster if they slipped at the wrong moment. Having something between your grip and the wheel would be disturbing.

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In the 1970's cars with hard plastic steering wheels were very unpleasant in both summer and winter; so, too, even older cars with wooden steering wheels.

However, the major driver (if I may) is posing: the 'look' of driving a racing car or near-track sports car. The real thing will have a very small wheel, very closely-geared to give full lock in a half-turn, and it will transmit every ripple in the road into your palms. Driving gloves are necessary for that, and a very personal compromise between protection, padding, grip and sensitivity.

...And, as I say, mere posing for any other vehicle you're not driving in competition.

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Fascinating, thanks (I do like to know how things work).

(And good grief, I remember 1970's plastic seats and how hot and sticky they got in the summer. My Mum would make me sit on a tea towel.)

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Cars with vinyl seats and no air-conditioning. I remember that, too.

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They're a bit Farage-y now.

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My mum used to have a pair of gloves that she kept in the car and referred to as 'driving gloves', but they were just a pair of gloves she could wear on bloody cold days, which (unlike her more normal woolly ones) had enough grip not to also make it impossible to drive. I too suffer from occasional 'yarrgh, the steering wheel is below freezing' moments in winter, but since my gloves of choice are leather anyway, I just wear those when I feel the need, whether I'm driving or not.

Other replies above suggest that there's such a thing as real, official, special-purpose 'driving gloves' which aren't the same as what I'm describing. If so, I've never seen any :-)

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I often drive whilst wearing gloves - in winter - and I do have an emergency pair in the glove box (appropriately) in case of sudden cold snaps, but I don't have 'driving gloves' per se. I have rubbish circulation, and the combination of cold weather and having my arms raised to grip the steering wheel means my hands get very cold very quickly.

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Yeah, that. I have a pair of Isotoners that my mum sent me from Canada that I use only for driving (they're expensive and you can't get them over here, and I lose gloves on the bus at a tremendous rate of knots) - they're really warm and they have leather grips.

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Those huge foam ones with extended digits for giving the bird to other motorists!

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I always used to wear them on motorbikes, but that's a safety issue, you need to protect your hands if you have an accident. Also can get very cold!

For cars, I think they go back to older cars with hard steering wheels and no heat, as others have said, also to the really early days when hand signals were used.

Edited Date: 2015-01-16 11:01 am (UTC)

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I use gloves for riding my bike in autumn and spring. If I could afford leather - for better grip - I would have them that way.

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P wears some lovely lined leather gloves he got for Christmas, because Edinburgh winter is being bloody cold as expected and the car's like an icebox. I have some lovely knitted fingerless gloves from

ghoti that keep me sufficiently toasty :)

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A Bug's Life

Driving gloves

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September