Um, guessing the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk isn't totally safe
Dangerous product reports aren’t something we typically do here at Everyday Money.
But, covering the issues that surround topical consumer behaviour is.
And so it’s with that I present, via “Items for sale that no longer make you question why humans do stuff like this,” the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk.
Every Canadian knows the dangers of talking and texting while they drive, and residents of Ontario are even more hip to those pitfalls now that a hefty fine could accompany such behind the wheel conduct.
Yet the Consumerist, the for-the-people watchdogs of the Internet, has the perfect solution. They write:
“One problem with driving is it gets in the way of your texting, and for all but the most dexterous, entirely rules out getting some work done on your laptop.
“But no more, thanks to this handy new Laptop Steering Wheel Desk. For less than $20, you can make the road that much less safe.”
If you check out that Amazon link, you’ll see this thing is actually for real. Categorized under “mobile office” products, drivers can actually pin a clip-on desk to their wheels to balance a laptop, snack, cell phone or whatever while they speed down the road.
(I know, I know, it says not to use it while driving and actually has some cachet as work-from-your-car product. As someone who vaguely, roughly, okay-maybe-not-really considers himself a journalist, I can appreciate the merits of a mobile office.
But you are crazy if you think people on North American highways wouldn’t slap this baby on for a straight-ahead drive while wolfing down a bagel and playing Minesweeper. Crazy.)
So will the steering wheel desk catch on? Hard to say, but we can’t imagine law enforcement agencies – let alone other drivers – are thrilled about the advent of this one.
The product is advertised with pictures like this and this, when maybe more appropriate usage scenarios would end up like this and this.
By Jason Buckland, MSN Money
Posted by: Tracey | Nov 8, 2021 10:02:13 PM
This FRIGHTENINGLY crazy! I would NEVER get one of these and I SINCERELY hope that if I ever got into an accident, then the other driver BETTER NOT have one. Scary.
Posted by: Ron | Nov 9, 2021 4:13:46 PM
Perhaps before critising to heavily you should look at the target market that this item is aimed at. As one who worked the oilfields for many years and had to work out of my truck I would have been pleased to have such a device.
There are many construction, service, oilfield, and maintenance jobs out there that require a great deal of field paper work to be done while on site. Very few of these locations have an office that you can borrow.
Is it such a stretch to imagine your vehicle being an office, the desk put away and then it becomes transportation.
In this day of multi function, multi task my hats off to a company that has solved a problem for many hard working field personel.
Posted by: Laurel | Nov 10, 2021 11:10:38 PM
I would say that a good way to allow this into the market would be some type of steering wheel imobilizer like a club attachment so the wheel cannot be turned while the desk top is in use on the steering wheel. I'm in Industrial sales and I agree with Ron that it would be useful in the right circumstances, but the nutters that are out there scare me. Someone might use it while the vehicle is in motion.
Posted by: ahummerz | Nov 11, 2021 6:08:35 PM
As a Proffessional driver I have seen it all from from you know what to you know what>>>>. I watched a Guy in a cadillac cts laptop going cell going and last but not least driving with his Knees?????? I wonder if thats not multi tasking I don,t know what is. I wonder how he would explain that to his insurance ah but then again he was probably a share holder in the company????? Profit down the drain.