View from the Right

Most vehicles have at least two seats, unless we're talking about Formula One racers or UPS delivery vans. Yet as both a driver and an auto writer, I have rarely evaluated vehicles from the passenger side. 

That changed recently, after I had surgery and couldn't drive for a month. Suddenly I was in the right front seat, and it made me think: What are the best vehicles in which to ride as a passenger? They won't always be the same ones that I praise from behind the wheel.

A passenger judges a vehicle using different criteria. For example: Throw the zero-to-60 time out the window. Ditto for G-force figures during cornering and for slamming on antilock breaks.

As a driver, I like feeling I'm one with the road. As a passenger, I don't even want to know if the road is paved or dirt. As a driver, I want all controls within arm's reach. As a passenger, I want to voice-command the navigation system, watch a favorite movie on a flip-down DVD player and listen to satellite radio through a gazillion speakers.

I thought about this as my wife drove me from doctor's office to doctor's office, to stores for needed purchases, and on rides just to get out of the house. What made me comfortable, or uncomfortable, in the right-hand seat, where the copilot sits in this country?

Small cars cannot give me the legroom I need to be completely comfortable as a passenger. And I don't need some 16-way adjustable bucket seat that pinches my rib cage and squashes my thighs as those in some sporty cars do.

Fortunately, the final week of test-riding was in a 2007 Mercury Grand Marquis. This is a full-size car that my 85-year-old cousin Mary Agnes would covet. She demands a column-mounted shifter and three-across seating, front and rear. Her choices are limited. This car is one of a handful she could buy without the cursed floor-shifter.