So I was driving through the mountains the other day, and I accidently shut off the engine with my right knee... I was entering a downhill turn, and when I lifted my leg off the accel to hit the brakes, my knee hit my keys and turned the ignition off. So I was left with a locked up steering wheel entering a sharp turn. Lucky for me, I was able to slow the car in a safe manner, turn the keys to the on position, press the start button, and drive on.

This never happened to me before, so I was wondering if anyone else experienced this. Ive had the car for a couple months now, but I'm guessing it might be due to the tight cabin or my pedal work may be excessively animated. Anyways, this could have been really bad because the steering locks up and after you pump the brakes once, those are done as well. Be careful!

 

I guess I'm not that tall.

 

Ive heard about this happening to someone on a track before. Must be pretty scary especially if you don't realize what happened at first.

 

That happened to me when I had my Integra. I was crossing through an intersection and as soon as I got through, I just felt the car start slowing down in a weird way. I look down and see the car is in the off position. It was an auto, so I just rolled to the side of the road, restarted her and kept going. Fortunately it was dead slow around me and I wasn't moving very fast. I had a good laugh when I realized everything was ok.

 

Yikes! How tall are you?

 

This last happened to me in my mother's 98 Accord.
A new ignition key cylinder fixed that! I was worn dead by the massive size of her keychain so that any light touch would cut the car off.

How heavy is your keychain?

 

I'm 5'8. My seating position is some what tight, as I like it snug when the g-force hits. I always thought the steering wheel position was too low, so I'm going to look into lowering the driver seat an inch or two.

My key chain consists of the car fob, car key, house key, storage key, and a 1"x1" plastic tag. I think maybe that plastic tag may have got to an angle where a slight touch may have had enough leverage to turn the ignition off. Off that goes!

 

did it a few times on track on stock seats but with aftermarket seats, u sit lower so its solved. You can also keep the objects with your key to a minimum to avoid the chance of being snagged by your knee.

 

That's crazy.. On a track I'd feel safer as its a bit more open at least. On a mountain run though? F that.. I'd try and reposition myself so it doesn't happen again.

 

Happened to me on a very tight mountain run once. I didn't realize what had happened until my steering immobilized and my brakes didn't work. Lucky I was on a straight.