bigger buttons so that people with fat fingers can press them more easily

Car manufacturers, and especially those that make luxury cars are having to change the dimensions of the standard seats that they put in their cars because so many more drivers are overweight or obese. Over the last 50 years the average car in Europe has become a foot wider and much of this size increase is due to obesity.

The German car manufacturer BMW has actually put together a research project for which they got 800 volunteers of different sizes to examine exactly how obesity impacts on mobility when driving. The volunteers were asked to do a number of routine car tasks like getting in and out of the car or reversing while at the same time looking over their shoulder. 

Mr. Ralf Kaiser from the BMW ergonomics team explained that they felt it was important to adapt to the problems that overweight and obese people have with driving cars and that they wanted to do the best for their customers. For example they said that having computer generated images on a screen in front of you so that you could see what was behind you when you are reversing was already part of the BMW package.

Other car manufacturers such as Mercedes have made plans to make the handles above the car doors stronger so that heavier drivers and passengers can support themselves, and Porsche is coming up with special electrically operated steering columns which move right out of the way when the engine is turned off. Some other car manufacturers have made many of the buttons on the dashboard much bigger so that people with fat fingers can press them more easily.

It is a sad sign of the times that so many car manufacturers are having to make changes to accommodate obese people. This is only going to cause more pollution and more expense for the car industry. This is yet another reason why the UK government should be investing in obesity prevention.