38 replies to this topic

[kafouser]

Hi. I've got Gosling hand controls on a Vito van. Previously I've used Bekker controls, but Goslings are nearer where I live, so I went to them this time. They're dearer than Bekker and I really don't think that you get any more, other than a bit of plastic bar, for the money. The other grumble that I have is that, as you can see from the photo on this thread, the brake connection is very obtrusive. I wear calipers without knee joints and trying to get my feet past the operating rod can be difficult. I can see a way of changing it, but haven't got round to doing it, as it's fiddly. I don't know how this linkage is arranged on other vehicles. Other than this, they're fine, but given that I only need brake/throttle and no other gadgetry, I think that next time I'll just go for the cheapest, or get these refitted. If i can work out how to take on, I'll upload a picture.

[speeds]

 Scribbler, on Sep 25 2008, 10:54 AM, said:

I'm C4/5 and been injured 50 years. I used Jeff Gosling hand controls when I started driving as they we about the only ones around. I'm talking 40 years ago..

There wasn't the high tech stuff there is today, so I worked out my own system to operate indicators and to dip my lights.

I had a 3 way switch (from a motorbike) fitted to my push-pull lever, which I could easily flick left or right, by using my thumb.

I also had a small press-button fitted close to the armrest in the door, which I could tap with me elbow to dip my lights. It sounds rather basic but it worked and gave me the independance we all strive for.

I don't drive now but I know there are masses of high tech adaptions to enable SCI to drive, but like all disability equipment, its very expensive.

Scribbler,

I think you've got slightly confused with your info....

The very first commercially available hand controls were Alfred Bekker controls back in the early seventies. Alfred Bekker then trained many 'agents' to fit his controls, and some of them decided to 'copy' the designs and sell them as their own products. Gosling was infact a Bekker trained fitter at first. This was most certainly not 40 years ago, more like 20. Infact, Gosling advertises that he started in 1988! I think you will find that the original controls you had on your car were infact Bekker controls that were fitted by Gosling.

The current bekker controls to me, and by many people are by far the best. Who in their right mind would by a 'copycat' version of a product? The Focus kit fitted by bekkers IMHO is the best on the market by far. There are no 'LIPS' or rods and levers in the way, just a simple small linkage that slots neatly behind the dashboard, and works brilliantly. The operation is very light and these are the level best controls I have ever had fitted to my car.

It annoys me when people slate companies when they know little or nothing about products.....

Admin note: Just corrected the date from 1998 to 1988.

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by Apparelyzed, 13 January 2010 - 04:19 PM.

[Apparelyzed]

Hi,

I don't know if it's of interest, but I found the following article quite interesting about Jeff Gosling.

Thriving along with my automobile

When Jeff Gosling lost the use of his legs. he set up a factory to make the best hand controls for disabled drivers. Martin Gurdon meets the man who really understands his customers.

Preconceptions are dangerous things. Before meeting Jeff Gosling I'd pictured him as a bluff, fifty-something Mancunian with regulation jacket and tie, perhaps straining a little at the seams from years of business lunches.

Instead I was greeted by a casually dressed, fit, dynamic man who could have been in his middle thirties (in fact he's 42) and slightly resembles a younger Tony Blair.

I had expected the wheelchair. The legacy of a motorcycle accident it's been a fact of Jeff Gosling's life for the past two decades, but there's nothing wheelchair "bound" about its occupant.

Before the accident, Gosling was an aircraft engineer. When he began driving in a 1968 Triumph 2000 fitted with hand controls, he started looking at the controls both as a designer and an end user, and eventually decided to develop and make his own equipment.

"The design of these systems is fairly simple. Being an engineer and disabled I thought that made me fairly well qualified to say what they should be like."

After taking some time out "to learn French" he set up shop in 1988, works from a mill-turned-industrial-estate on the outskirts of Manchester and has been one of the prime movers behind ditching the utilitarian, crimped metal "NHS grey" hand controls that were being made a generation ago.

"If you're newly disabled, it's traumatic. This (modifying a car) is something you can do that is positive. Also, with a car, you're out and about and on an equal footing with everybody else," says Gosling, a man well used to having conversations with people looming over him.

Before the Triumph, he had visions of being forced in to one of the now almost extinct, pale blue, three-wheeled invalid carriages ("plastic rats") and was hugely relieved to discover there were alternatives. His company now offers infra-red steering wheel- mounted controls for lights, horn, wipers etc, seats that can slide in and out, and a bewildering array of winches and ramps. It can make accelerator pedals fold away, and modify handbrakes and gear quadrants so that they are easier to use.

However, it is the deceptively simple looking push/pull hand controls that remain at the heart of his business. Essentially, these consist of a padded steel bar pivoted under the steering column, attached directly to the brake and accelerator pedals using a mix of ball-jointed metal sections and tensioned cabling.

It's only when Gosling starts talking about how the padding is made from deformable material found inside windscreen pillars and bumpers, how the pivot has its own bearings (making the control lighter and nicer to use), or the work involved in getting the system's geometry right (basically, how all the bits are angled) that you begin to understand the skills employed.

Complex vehicle engineering for items such as fly-by-wire throttles ("there's nothing to push against") and the plethora of airbags found in today's cars makes fitting hand controls a delicate process, too.

No longer can the electrical spaghetti found inside many steering columns simply be hacked-about so that hand controls can be bolted in place. Sometimes there are no obvious attachment points, and this required further lateral thinking.

Where cars have automatically adjustable steering columns, these have to be shut down, and with Mercedes fitting airbags inside some steering columns, further ingenuity is required to make sure they're not interfered with.

It's not surprising that Gosling works from about 650 design drawings for different cars (there are three sets for the Toyota Starlet alone).

"There's a finite amount of room between the dash and the steering wheel," says Gosling, who beyond the serried ranks of Fiestas and Micras has modified Ferraris, Porsches, Aston Martins, shed-loads of BMWs and Mercedes, even a 50-year-old Jowett Javelin.

He's worked on electric sightseeing buggies, JCBs and a giant tractor, modified to allow a recently disabled farmer to stay in business. "I love getting my teeth in to things like that. We're not doctors, we're engineers, but we are fighting disease," he says.

Safety issues keep him busy. His latest controls have padding with the entertaining acronym of LIPS (for Leg Impact Protection System).

"If my wife Sue was driving and kneecapped herself, that would be a real catastrophe," says Gosling, who has two young daughters.

His company is accredited by Motability, the giant organisation that supplies vehicles to disabled drivers. The paperwork and specifications involved with this are as nightmarish as you would expect.

Making the controls inconspicuous is also part of the Motability remit, but has always been a big preoccupation for Gosling. The unspoken implication is that the market for cars fitted with hand controls is effectively a captive one, and it would be easy to adopt a joyless "take what you're given" approach to clients.

Gosling likes to drive. Currently he uses a new-shape BMW Compact ("it's a two-litre diesel producing 150bhp — amazing. They're using engines like this in aircraft"), in which he makes smooth and fast progress. The hand control is pulled towards the wheel to accelerate and pushed away to brake. It's a world away from battling with the tiller steering of a three-wheeled "plastic rat".

Before the BMW, Gosling drove a Toyota MR2. Both had clutchless Tiptronic transmissions offering either fully automatic or manual changes and he's a big fan of these systems for ease of use and fun ("why bother with manuals when automatics are now so good?").

He also flies a modified Piper light aircraft — fitted with Australian-made hand controls — and wistfully concedes that engineering his own system would involve even more red tape.

Jeff Gosling is not a saint, but he's an interesting man who found a way of making creative use of a potentially devastating experience. Although he would clearly rather be judged on who he is and what he does, rather than how he gets about, Gosling knows this informs his work.

"I'm in the same situation as my clients. I suppose that gives me a certain sympathy. I wouldn't make anything I'm not prepared to use myself."

Source: http://www.telegraph...automobile.html

[Scribbler]

 speeds, on Jan 13 2010, 04:09 PM, said:

 Scribbler, on Sep 25 2008, 10:54 AM, said:

I'm C4/5 and been injured 50 years. I used Jeff Gosling hand controls when I started driving as they we about the only ones around. I'm talking 40 years ago..

There wasn't the high tech stuff there is today, so I worked out my own system to operate indicators and to dip my lights.

I had a 3 way switch (from a motorbike) fitted to my push-pull lever, which I could easily flick left or right, by using my thumb.

I also had a small press-button fitted close to the armrest in the door, which I could tap with me elbow to dip my lights. It sounds rather basic but it worked and gave me the independance we all strive for.

I don't drive now but I know there are masses of high tech adaptions to enable SCI to drive, but like all disability equipment, its very expensive.

Scribbler,

I think you've got slightly confused with your info....

The very first commercially available hand controls were Alfred Bekker controls back in the early seventies. Alfred Bekker then trained many 'agents' to fit his controls, and some of them decided to 'copy' the designs and sell them as their own products. Gosling was infact a Bekker trained fitter at first. This was most certainly not 40 years ago, more like 20. Infact, Gosling advertises that he started in 1988! I think you will find that the original controls you had on your car were infact Bekker controls that were fitted by Gosling.

The current bekker controls to me, and by many people are by far the best. Who in their right mind would by a 'copycat' version of a product? The Focus kit fitted by bekkers IMHO is the best on the market by far. There are no 'LIPS' or rods and levers in the way, just a simple small linkage that slots neatly behind the dashboard, and works brilliantly. The operation is very light and these are the level best controls I have ever had fitted to my car.

It annoys me when people slate companies when they know little or nothing about products.....

Admin note: Just corrected the date from 1998 to 1988.

Hi Speedo,

My controls weren't as fancy as yours. It worked from a tank of air under the bonnet, which helped me brake more easily. If I'm confused, it may be about the make of controls, which were fitted at Coventry, although I lived in Lincolnshire at the time. It was fitted to an Austin Princess; a big car that had power steering.

There's a big difference between C5/6 and C4/5. I also went to Bekker; if he's the Dutch guy? That's another story. As long as you'r happy Speedo, that's all that matters.

Mike

[speeds]

 Apparelyzed, on Jan 13 2010, 04:47 PM, said:

Hi,

I don't know if it's of interest, but I found the following article quite interesting about Jeff Gosling.

Thriving along with my automobile

When Jeff Gosling lost the use of his legs. he set up a factory to make the best hand controls for disabled drivers. Martin Gurdon meets the man who really understands his customers.

Preconceptions are dangerous things. Before meeting Jeff Gosling I'd pictured him as a bluff, fifty-something Mancunian with regulation jacket and tie, perhaps straining a little at the seams from years of business lunches.

Instead I was greeted by a casually dressed, fit, dynamic man who could have been in his middle thirties (in fact he's 42) and slightly resembles a younger Tony Blair.

I had expected the wheelchair. The legacy of a motorcycle accident it's been a fact of Jeff Gosling's life for the past two decades, but there's nothing wheelchair "bound" about its occupant.

Before the accident, Gosling was an aircraft engineer. When he began driving in a 1968 Triumph 2000 fitted with hand controls, he started looking at the controls both as a designer and an end user, and eventually decided to develop and make his own equipment.

"The design of these systems is fairly simple. Being an engineer and disabled I thought that made me fairly well qualified to say what they should be like."

After taking some time out "to learn French" he set up shop in 1988, works from a mill-turned-industrial-estate on the outskirts of Manchester and has been one of the prime movers behind ditching the utilitarian, crimped metal "NHS grey" hand controls that were being made a generation ago.

"If you're newly disabled, it's traumatic. This (modifying a car) is something you can do that is positive. Also, with a car, you're out and about and on an equal footing with everybody else," says Gosling, a man well used to having conversations with people looming over him.

Before the Triumph, he had visions of being forced in to one of the now almost extinct, pale blue, three-wheeled invalid carriages ("plastic rats") and was hugely relieved to discover there were alternatives. His company now offers infra-red steering wheel- mounted controls for lights, horn, wipers etc, seats that can slide in and out, and a bewildering array of winches and ramps. It can make accelerator pedals fold away, and modify handbrakes and gear quadrants so that they are easier to use.

However, it is the deceptively simple looking push/pull hand controls that remain at the heart of his business. Essentially, these consist of a padded steel bar pivoted under the steering column, attached directly to the brake and accelerator pedals using a mix of ball-jointed metal sections and tensioned cabling.

It's only when Gosling starts talking about how the padding is made from deformable material found inside windscreen pillars and bumpers, how the pivot has its own bearings (making the control lighter and nicer to use), or the work involved in getting the system's geometry right (basically, how all the bits are angled) that you begin to understand the skills employed.

Complex vehicle engineering for items such as fly-by-wire throttles ("there's nothing to push against") and the plethora of airbags found in today's cars makes fitting hand controls a delicate process, too.

No longer can the electrical spaghetti found inside many steering columns simply be hacked-about so that hand controls can be bolted in place. Sometimes there are no obvious attachment points, and this required further lateral thinking.

Where cars have automatically adjustable steering columns, these have to be shut down, and with Mercedes fitting airbags inside some steering columns, further ingenuity is required to make sure they're not interfered with.

It's not surprising that Gosling works from about 650 design drawings for different cars (there are three sets for the Toyota Starlet alone).

"There's a finite amount of room between the dash and the steering wheel," says Gosling, who beyond the serried ranks of Fiestas and Micras has modified Ferraris, Porsches, Aston Martins, shed-loads of BMWs and Mercedes, even a 50-year-old Jowett Javelin.

He's worked on electric sightseeing buggies, JCBs and a giant tractor, modified to allow a recently disabled farmer to stay in business. "I love getting my teeth in to things like that. We're not doctors, we're engineers, but we are fighting disease," he says.

Safety issues keep him busy. His latest controls have padding with the entertaining acronym of LIPS (for Leg Impact Protection System).

"If my wife Sue was driving and kneecapped herself, that would be a real catastrophe," says Gosling, who has two young daughters.

His company is accredited by Motability, the giant organisation that supplies vehicles to disabled drivers. The paperwork and specifications involved with this are as nightmarish as you would expect.

Making the controls inconspicuous is also part of the Motability remit, but has always been a big preoccupation for Gosling. The unspoken implication is that the market for cars fitted with hand controls is effectively a captive one, and it would be easy to adopt a joyless "take what you're given" approach to clients.

Gosling likes to drive. Currently he uses a new-shape BMW Compact ("it's a two-litre diesel producing 150bhp — amazing. They're using engines like this in aircraft"), in which he makes smooth and fast progress. The hand control is pulled towards the wheel to accelerate and pushed away to brake. It's a world away from battling with the tiller steering of a three-wheeled "plastic rat".

Before the BMW, Gosling drove a Toyota MR2. Both had clutchless Tiptronic transmissions offering either fully automatic or manual changes and he's a big fan of these systems for ease of use and fun ("why bother with manuals when automatics are now so good?").

He also flies a modified Piper light aircraft — fitted with Australian-made hand controls — and wistfully concedes that engineering his own system would involve even more red tape.

Jeff Gosling is not a saint, but he's an interesting man who found a way of making creative use of a potentially devastating experience. Although he would clearly rather be judged on who he is and what he does, rather than how he gets about, Gosling knows this informs his work.

"I'm in the same situation as my clients. I suppose that gives me a certain sympathy. I wouldn't make anything I'm not prepared to use myself."

Source: http://www.telegraph...automobile.html

Yep, that's an article from the Telegraph Newspaper back in 2004. At the end of the day, it's each to their own. People naturally have preconceptions of products, whether it be from 'Chinese whispers' or it be through malicious gossip, or in some cases, by word of mouth It's a crying shame that Bekker's didn't patent their design way back at the very start then it would be a whole different kettle of fish nowadays!

Each Hand control manufacturer will have done their fair share of prestige cars, the Ferrari’s, Porsches, Bentley’s I’ve even heard rumours of a Bugatti Veyron, as in the world at the moment there are some unscrupulous people who take advantage of the system by swapping their car at very short intervals and profiting from the VAT element- With the compensation levels going into the millions (and I might add no price can be levied in exchange for your freedom and mobility) there are many ‘top end’ cars out there with Hand controls that are sold only a few months old with a few small holes where the hand controls used to be- again another shame, as the minority will eventually end up ruining it for the majority....

All I can say is that Bekkers were the very first to produce the modern day 'Push Pull Hand Controls'- FACT
Bekkers Were the very first to train a national team of Dieabled fitters to install and research the hand controls... FACT

I'm certain that every set of controls have their good and bad points, but IMHO I would rather buy an'original' than a copy...

Edited by speeds, 14 January 2010 - 08:07 AM.

[S-Cyclone]

Without question the best I've driven on them for over 20 years and never considered any others.

Did have another push/pull before JG but never ever will I stay.

Fitted personally to my cars - over 20 and business vehicles.

[fish800]

 jakhep, on Oct 31 2007, 09:37 AM, said:

I'm thinking about using Jeff Gosling hand Controls in my car, does anyone have any experience of using Them and if so do you like them?, this is for UK members. as i dont think they are available in the States.

I have an issue with them - twice now when needing to perform an emergency stop, the grip has rotated and reduced the braking efficiency quite significantly. These were fitted on my motability car. It is a concern as I have a friend who has experienced an jamming accelerator with these controls too. To be quite frank, I would not want to drive a car fitted with these controls. :-(

[guido]

I stand (or sit) corrected and having been quite opinionated earlier in this thread, thought it right to come back and make an addition!!!


Have just had a change of car thanks to a little prang and in buying another, needed to get everything sorted as quickly as possible. Found a 2nd hand car and looked for the closest hand control installer, which happened to be Cowal (6 miles down the road). Got them put in and wow, what a difference.


They are lighter, they are fitted much more out of the way, and I got an indicator switch & main beam switch included.


IMHO if I were to choose between JG and C again I would go with the Cowal.


Now considering getting controls fitted in gf's car - which wasn't an option before as she didn't like the bulkiness of JG.


Haven't tried Bekker, so can't judge them.


Incidentally, if you are buying a 2nd hand car in the UK and want to save paying VAT on servicing, I have written up a short feature about how to buy a zero rated 2nd hand car with external links to relevant organisations. Know the VAT Relief rules BEFORE you go out and buy. I had to steer my trader through it, but he was happy and I save money.

[xxm]

I have questions to all quad drivers:

My hand control is custom build according to my own design. It serves me more than 20 years and has two features that most hand controls lack:

1. Gas can be fixed so that you can use steering wheel with both hands.
2. Both gas and break can be applied at the same time: this is very useful to start off on steep road without using hand break (that is between the seats)

So my questions are:
1. How do you manage without these features
2. Do you know standard hand controls that have both of them

All answers will be appreciated as I must change my car and maybe my hand control.
Thanks all who posted on this topic. All posts will be very useful for my new design.

Rudy

Edited by xxm, 06 October 2010 - 11:17 AM.