You filthy animals.
It doesn’t matter if your car is impeccably clean or if it looks like the inside of an NYC dumpster in an alleyway — there is one area of a car that is as dirty as a porta potty toilet.
It turns out that the steering wheel is the dirtiest place in a car, according to motoring specialists Plates Express.
Usually, when people think of tidying up their cars, they’ll do the obvious — throw out garbage lying around, maybe take a vacuum to the corners or dust the car’s console, but it seems that drivers are rarely wiping down the spot that attracts the most germs.
“You wouldn’t go weeks without washing your hands, but drivers go months without wiping down the one surface they touch every single day,” James Taylor, a luxury car cleaner, told the Daily Mail.
This is problematic news because a car can harbor a lot of bacteria — especially the steering wheel. And as expected, “People touch their face, their phone, their food — then grab the wheel,” Taylor said.
“I’ve cleaned Bentleys that looked spotless — but when you swab the wheel, the bacteria levels are through the roof,” he revealed to the outlet.
Aside from the obvious germs that harbor on a driver’s hands — things like sneezing and coughing when driving will also wind up on the wheel.
According to Taylor, all it takes is a simple wipe down once a week using an antibacterial wipe or a car interior cleaner to get rid of the grossness on the steering wheel.
According to a survey by CarRentals.com, 32% of drivers clean their car once a year, and 12% don’t even bother to clean their vehicles. Here’s to hoping if anything, they’ll at least do a quick wipe down on the dirtiest part.
And while drivers should be cleaning their cars more often — they should also always be more focused on the task at hand, especially Gen Z.
A Lemonade survey revealed that 54% of the generation born between 1997 and 2012 eat while behind the wheel, and a whopping 32% drive while tired.
15% of Gen Z also admitted to having heated arguments while steering the car, while 13% of them drove with a pet in their laps — talk about a slew of distractions.
