Girls At The Wheel

Buttons and controls on the steering wheel
The first button added to the steering wheel was a switch to activate the car's electric horn. Traditionally located on the steering wheel hub or center pad, the horn switch was sometimes placed on the spokes or activated via a decorative horn ring which obviated the necessity to move a hand away from the rim. A further development, the Rim Blow steering wheel, integrated the horn switch into the steering wheel rim itself.
When speed control systems were introduced in the 1960s, some automakers located the operating switches for this feature on the steering wheel. In the 1990s, a proliferation of new buttons began to appear on automobile steering wheels. Remote or alternate adjustments for the audio system, the telephone and voice control, acoustic repetition of the last navigation instruction, stereo system, and on board computer functions can be operated comfortably and safely using buttons on the steering wheel. This ensures a high standard of additional safety since the driver is able in this way to control and operate many systems without even taking hands off the wheel or eyes off the road.