Car head room and knee space requirements for portable sitting supports

Did you know you can get lower back pain from sitting in a car with too little head room and knee space? If you are too tall to comfortably fit into the seat of a small car and you find yourself uncomfortably scrunched, you'll make the problem worse if you try to correct it with a portable sitting support. Back cushions and seat inserts raise you up even higher.

If you find that you don't have enough head or knee room in your car to allow you to sit properly, get a different car! We're not kidding! Some tall folks can only drive without pain in a truck or van.

A lumbar cushion, when properly fitted, increases your lumbar curve (lumbar lordosis) and straightens your torso, stretching some people 2" or more upwards. Look in a mirror and see how much you "grow" when you move from a slumped sitting position to sitting up straight.

A seat cushion or seat wedge can raise your body 1" to 3" higher. Even a relatively thin seat liner will raise you higher, since it prevents you from sinking into the softer car seat. This is a problem not only for head room, but also for knee space under the dashboard and steering wheel.

A combined support, with both lumbar and seat sections, can raise you 4" to 6" higher!

For most people, the higher you sit in your car the better you'll feel, and the less back and neck pain you'll have. Unfortunately, cars often have too little head and knee space to allow the best sitting posture, especially for taller people.

Article reproduced with permission from ergoTALK.