2 Questions Answered by Sharon Peters
Q:
I’m 5-foot 3-inches tall and my husband is one foot taller. We share driving responsibility on the road trips that we frequently take, and we need to be able to adjust the height of not only the driver’s seat but also the passenger’s seat. We don’t want to spend $50,000, and we’re not having luck finding cars with height-adjusting passenger seats. Can you steer us?
A:
Oddly, this feature is still more rare than it should be.Still, an increasing number of vehicles offer it. Among them: the Toyota Avalon, Hyundai Sonata and Buick Encore, all of which have height-changing mechanisms that are easy to use and provide a decent amount of change in height.
The feature is usually an extra-charge option that’s not publicized, so if there’s a make that pleases you, get a salesperson to see if there’s a trim level that includes it.
Q:
We live in Florida, which, like most states, has a graduated drivers licensing law (GDL) for teenagers. We have a teen driver and will be spending all summer with relatives in Alabama and Georgia. These relatives are elderly and don’t know anything about the GDL in their states, and probably don’t have the ability to get our questions answered. I’m at a loss about how to get details. In my state, for example, there’s no restriction on the number of passengers a teen can have in the car when driving, but many other states do have restrictions, and this is of particular interest. We also need to know at what age our 16-year-old will be off GDL restrictions in those states. Where to start?
A:
The GDLs enacted by various states to place some restrictions on teen drivers do, indeed, differ. (For the uninitiated: GDLs have to do with nighttime driving, number of passengers allowed in the vehicle, cell phone use and so on).
The Governors Highway Safety Association has made it simple: it has compiled a state-by-state list of the various highlights and restrictions that each state has enacted.
There are, indeed, some differences between your home state and the two states you’ll be visiting.
Go to http://bit.ly/GDLinfo for the listing.
And if you have specific-detail questions, contact the highway safety office at each state.
What's your car question? Email Sharon Peters to get some answers at sharon@ctwfeatures.com