Steering Wheel Controls and Driver Safety

Controls on the rim are a driver safety upgrade, not a convenience feature. They cut the time you spend with a hand off the wheel and your eyes off the road, and the Australian Design Rules set out what any wheel carrying those controls has to do. With PVS Automotive, your audio, cruise and phone controls run through the PVS wireless control module, so your factory clockspring and the supplementary restraint system circuit stay untouched.

Why hands-on-wheel control matters

Driving safely depends on both hands staying on the wheel and both eyes staying on the road. Every function you can work without reaching away from the rim, such as volume, setting or cancelling cruise, or answering a call, is one you don't look down at the dash for.

That counts most in heavy four wheel drives and over long touring distances. If you're running a loaded 70 Series or 200 Series LandCruiser, you're carrying serious mass on a higher centre of gravity than a passenger car, on unsealed roads, in convoy or under tow. The margin for a momentary lapse is smaller. The consequences of losing directional control are greater. Over a long touring day you can reach for a dash control hundreds of times, and bringing those functions to the wheel takes that reaching action out of the drive.

Controls on the rim sit with the same safety principle behind the driver distraction road rules in every Australian state and territory. The aim is to keep you in command of the vehicle, hands on the wheel, attention on the road ahead.

How taking a hand off the wheel increases risk

Reach for a control on the dash or centre console and three things happen at once. One hand comes off the wheel, so you have less steering authority if a sudden correction is needed. Your eyes leave the road for as long as it takes to find the control and work it. And your attention moves from driving to the secondary task. Each one raises risk on its own, and they arrive together.

At highway speed your vehicle covers a large distance in the short time a glance at the dash takes. On corrugated dirt or a winding mountain pass, losing a hand and a forward glance at the wrong moment is more serious again. A heavy 4WD doesn't answer a correction as quickly as a light car, so recovering from a wander or a wheel dropping off the edge of the bitumen depends on both hands being ready and your eyes forward.

Steering wheel controls don't remove the secondary task. They keep your hands on the rim and shorten the glance, because the controls sit in a fixed, learned position under your thumbs. You aren't hunting across the dash for them.

ADR considerations for steering wheel controls

Adding controls to a steering wheel modifies a safety component, so it has to be done in a way that keeps your vehicle compliant with the Australian Design Rules covering the wheel and the occupant restraint system.

The thread running through all of them: the controls have to be reachable and useful without introducing new hazards. No sharp or hard protrusion in the cabin, no interference with the horn, nothing that compromises the airbag or the steering. A control set that does the job on the road but fails any of those construction and restraint requirements isn't a compliant modification.

How PVS keeps your airbag and clockspring intact

The compliance question that matters most in any steering wheel control retrofit is how the control signals get from the rotating wheel to the fixed vehicle wiring without disturbing the airbag circuit. There are two ways to do it, and the compliance outcomes are very different.

The clockspring is the rotary electrical connector behind your wheel that holds the airbag circuit through the full range of steering rotation. It's matched to your vehicle. Plenty of aftermarket control kits route the new control wiring through a replacement clockspring, which means cutting into the original safety connector and substituting it. Swapping in a generic unit breaks the original supplementary restraint system circuit integrity, and that's a compliance problem under ADR 69/00 and ADR 10.

PVS Automotive doesn't do that. PVS steering wheel controls run through the PVS wireless control module. Control signals travel wirelessly from the wheel to a receiver, so there's no new wiring spliced into the clockspring. You keep the factory clockspring, untouched, so the airbag circuit, the horn circuit and all factory restraint system wiring stay factory-original. Your vehicle keeps the occupant protection it was built and certified with.

For the full technical picture on the clockspring, why a generic replacement is a compliance and safety problem, and how the wireless approach gets around it, read Clocksprings and Airbag System Compliance. The broader compliance picture on replacement wheels sits in ADR Steering Wheels.

Controls on the wheel compared with reaching for the dash

Weigh up working a function from the rim against reaching for the same function on the dash or centre console, on safety and on compliance.

Which functions you keep

A PVS steering wheel control retrofit is matched to your vehicle and plug and play. It brings the everyday functions to the rim so you're not reaching for the dash.

• Audio volume, track and source selection
• Cruise control set, resume and cancel where your vehicle is equipped
• Phone answer and end on a paired hands-free connection
• Voice command activation where your head unit supports it
• Horn, still working through the retained factory wiring

Because the controls run through the PVS wireless control module instead of a replacement clockspring, your airbag, horn and factory restraint wiring all keep working the way the manufacturer intended. You gain the controls without giving up a factory safety function.

Vehicle coverage and products

You get a PVS steering wheel upgrade with integrated controls matched to your specific vehicle. Here's the current range, each one built to retain the factory clockspring and run the controls through the wireless module.

Bring full audio, cruise and phone controls to the rim with the 70 Series upgrade kits or the 200 Series upgrade kit, both keeping your factory clockspring. Add integrated controls to a 200 Series wheel with the LC200 control set. Shift without taking a hand off the rim using the carbon fibre paddle shifters for the Nissan R35 GT-R. If your variant or build year isn't listed, contact our team before you order so we can confirm clockspring and control compatibility per variant.

Certification and insurance

Fitting a wheel with integrated controls modifies a safety component, so treat it like any other safety modification for certification and insurance.

• NSW: Certification under NSW VSCCS may apply. Independent engineering assessment documentation is available on request.
• VIC: Victoria VASS certification may be required for modifications affecting safety systems. Assessment documentation is available on request.
• QLD: The Queensland Approved Person Scheme administered by TMR may apply for complex modifications. Contact TMR for guidance on your specific situation.
• SA, WA, TAS, NT, ACT: Refer to the relevant state or territory scheme.

Because the PVS approach retains your factory clockspring and leaves the supplementary restraint system circuit factory-original, your vehicle stays inside the occupant protection specification it was certified with. You can ask us for the independent engineering assessment documentation to support certification and insurer disclosure in any state. Read State and Territory Certification Requirements for the detail on each scheme, and use Find an Automotive Engineer to locate a licensed engineer in your state.

You should disclose a change to your vehicle's specification to your insurer. A PVS control upgrade retains the factory restraint system and comes with assessment documentation behind it, so it's a documentable modification you can disclose with confidence. Confirm what applies to your vehicle with a licensed automotive engineer and your insurer before you rely on any modification. The wider framework is set out in the ADR Compliance Overview and What are Australian Design Rules?