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-   -   Issue: Driver's foot (Accelerator foot) over a long drive (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/145031-issue-drivers-foot-accelerator-foot-over-long-drive-4.html)

I hope your post was in jest.
Pain in the muscles and tendons (I guess muscles only, I am not a doc) can also be due to prolonged use (or maintaining a weird joint angle) causing fatigue.

I don't suppose people go to surgeons to take care of muscle sore/pains after exercise (or even a simple long walk/march) ... ?

The case of getting pain around the foot/ankle area (please excuse our usage of loose and non technical terms) because you are forced to keep your ankle up for extended period in order to keep the toe hovering above the accelerator pedals is something very simple and pain is expected.
If I ask someone to stand on their toes for 2 hours, they should not get any pain in their calves?

And the foot can feel numb because of reduced blood supply (seat pad cutting into the hamstring part of your leg) over a long period.
What is so incredulous about this thread?

No i never jest around. I know everyone knows that there could be pain and numbness in legs due to prolonged use and taking rest would sove the problem. You always know what sort of pain and numbness it is and how it subsides when you get that pain. The pain is mostly in legs and thighs with numbness in foot. It is never a great deal of pain in foot and ankle. I mean to retirate that it is a transient or a fleeting pain and small adjustments in driving position and posture would solve the case.

But i thought if the pain was persistent enough for someone to hamper his adl ( activities od daily living) that somebody has come to create a thread here then it must be serious enough to get a expert opinion. Is it not?

So as an expert in this forum i am bound by my duty to guide you guys around

I completed a 8k kms cross country drive involving driving long distance and long hours consecutive days but never faced this issue of pain in the right foot. As for your case Bhowmik first I thought it might be a seating position wherein you are seated very far in front but you said its been in existence for long so it might be something internal. Did you get consultation from a specialist? If yes what was the diagnosis?

plantawhatever retrocalciumbrusitiswhatever in "Simple terms" :eek:

Hey joybhowmik,

It might be a simple case of tiredness due to prolonged use.

Do consider giving an oil massage to your legs and feet every evening and see if it helps.

He's making a professional judgement to help out a fellow member- let's not get snarky, please :)

This may well be the case. Or maybe you don't get enough exercise. Do some core muscle workouts to strengthen your legs and build some flexibility and you should be fine.

You've hit the nail on the head. I've got similar discomfort on my right shin after driving my WagonR on long journeys. I never got this pain on my M800, the Fiesta or the Figo. It is only on the WagonR that the position of the throttle is placed un-ergonomically, causing the driver to bend the foot upwards for long periods. There is some relief in pressing the throttle all the way down, but that is risky on our roads.

As a matter of fact, if I drive for more than half an hour, I start getting this pain. I don't generally drive the WagonR for longer than 30 minutes these days, so have not tried any of your suggestions. I'll give it a shot one of these days. Thanks for your suggestions.

Thanks for the remote diagnosis - I will try to get it confirmed by my local ortho, hopefully an X-Ray may show up the spur that you refer to.



Expert views compared to OP:
cold therapy - I have found simply washing with cold water helps
orthotics - I have found using cushioned heels / good insoles with gel heels helps.
taking rest stops - yes , check.



Just for the record, I did not propose any treatment , and merely highlighted what worked for me.

It is good to know, that recommendations from learned experts such as yourself (and references quoted by Wikipedia) , have a remarkable similarity to the remedies suggested in the OP. Indeed, to a non-medical person such as I, this is nothing short of an endorsement.
If my supposition is not entirely accurate, I would be curious to know what the term 'medical miracle' meant in your original response.

I too faced the same problem, i'm 5'11 and moved my seat quite forward thinking it would be ideal for emergency braking situations. But while driving in heavy bumper to bumper traffic, with repeated use of clutch and brake, my ankles began to hurt excruciatingly. I began to wonder if I had to bear with it while driving, finally I decided to move my seat further back as i could no longer deal with the pain while driving, I initially had some hiccups in getting used to the new driving position, but then i thought to myself that its better to spend to some time in getting used to the new driving position rather than deal with the immense pain and discomfort which hampers the entire driving experience.

Well, I faced a very extreme case of this issue
Have been driving in bangalore B2B traffic and during evening at work was facing some knockiness in ankle. Felt uncomfortable on my drive back home and by night it worsened. The situation was so bad by morning that i could not even stand or walk. Took the day off, went to see a orthopaedic doctor who after having a look at the x-ray advised ice packs every two hours and prescribed muscle relaxants. Was better by late afternoon. However, still the pain is not totally gone and i feel uncomfortable all the time.
To give a background before this happened, the weekend before that i had just returned from a 1700 KM long Kerala drive spread over 4 days(last day drive of 700 kms) and on an average spend 50 minutes (8 kms) in heavy B2B traffic one way. I drive a Ritz Petrol

Cruise control helps a lot for this situation. Even 20 to 30 second breaks every few minutes on a long drive relieves the stress in the ankle.

For the first time ever, I got ankle / foot cramps - that too, on a 15 km drive. Did a Google search and guess which website was listed on top of search results.

It hurt a bit and there was a feeling of numbness too. Time to see a doctor if it happens again?

Anyway, I just removed my shoes and drove on. The feeling of numbness and ankle cramps vanished after 2 minutes. I guess the cold accelerator pedal "massaged" my bare foot and that helped.

I experienced this when we did 1500 km trip to hometown during diwali. During the journey, while I was super comfortable, my right ankle would keep getting uncomfortable and at every break, all I would do was stretch and relax the ankle muscles. I terribly missed having cruise control which would have definitely helped me relax.

However, I experienced this only in Vento. I have also driven Zest, CRV and some other hatchbacks and compact sedans for 300-400 kms at a stretch (none had cruise control) but never felt any sort of uneasiness. I guess the sitting posture makes all the difference here. Vento with its low seating seems to aggravate while other cars with more upright seats don't really hurt the ankles.

I have been doing some 200ish KM trips since last 10-12 years. But I haven't faced any pain in my legs.

Driving pattern :
if its < 200KMs go nonstop

If its >200KMs pee/tea/C break every 100KMs or 2 hours

I follow the above patterns religiously.

While driving :-
I dont keep my right leg straight. I keep my knee on the door at a comfortable angle and just move the ankle to increase/ decrease speed. To avoid skin rubbing against the door pads, I always drive in a pair of Jeans. I prefer woodlands or boots while driving( Thick sole shoes). Chappals or sandals, I avoid even in short grocery shoppping drives.

My friends and family laugh at me for being so particular about these minor things but at the end of a 1700KM drive, I am the one who has the last laugh.

Greetings fellow BHPians! I am Kulin Shah a Newbie and this is my first post.

I am also suffering from this AB Foot Syndrome since Jan 2016. I bought a Honda Amaze EX Petrol in Sept 14 in Hyderabad. For one year – free service period, I did not make any long trip, just in the city. In Nov-Dec 2015 we made a long circuitous trip for a month and a half. Hyderabad – Bangalore – Mysore – Madikeri – Mangalore – Karwar – Hubli – Pune – Solapur – Hyderabad. This of course included driving down to nearby places from these base stations.

By the end of it all back in the base I noticed that the nerves on the back of the foot below the ankle had become extremely sensitive. The area of the foot I am talking about is depicted in red shade in the picture attached. A slight touch on the area and I would jump with pain and electric shock – the kind we get when we touch certain point on our knees and elbows. And the internal injury to this area just continued with the foot banging on the bed bottom, the vacuume cleaner crashing on the foot, etc.

And it went on to become worse and worse to such an extent that the nerves which were troubling me at the back just disappeared! No more electric shocks and hardly any pain. How could there be, when the whole portion -the whole round ball was 70% NUMB after repeated injuries!

Then came another trip to Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore and back for a month. This time, with the foot in that very condition.

Now, we have settled in Udupi for the last year. For the last one year the pain is severe at the base of the heel marked in green. Even if I drive for 10 minutes and get out I limp for 20-30 metres. 1-2 hours of shopping and other errands trip, and 2 days of almost continuous pain. Stand for an hour cooking and pain starts. Then there are the 2 toes and the ankle pain as mentioned by Joybhowmik.

But now after reading the various posts and consciously doing the foot rotating and flexing exercises it has become about 20% better. Guess I need go in for a thorough check-up.

Now after saying all these above, I want to add 2 more things which I feel are relevant.

One, my right leg is SHORTER that the left leg by about 4-5 mm. Is this the culprit?

Two, my previous cars were Maruti Van (20 yrs), Sumo (5), Bolero (5) and Tata Ace Magic (5). All of them clocked 5 figures – many many long trips. And I never ever had any pain! Is Honda Amaze’s sitting position the culprit?

If you see all those previous vehicles were such that when I sit in the driver’s seat my thighs are almost horizontal –parallel to the floor, the lower leg – knee to ankle is almost vertical, and the foot is leaning more to the horizontal plane. Whereas, in Amaze the foot is leaning more to the vertical plane and the weight of the foot is coming on that back ball which has now became numb because that ball is the fulcrum point for the whole foot to move from accelerator to the brake.

I wonder if any of you have developed this kind of pain using any of the 4 cars or similar to those I mentioned above.

The driver footwell has to be absolutely kept clear of any movable object (no footwear, water bottle, wooden block). Any loose item in the driver footwell carries a high risk of it sliding under the control pedals and rendering it inoperable and is extremely dangerous.

Another aspect is that raising the driverside foorwell mat (for eg: using double mats) can lead to premature clutch wear. The raised mat height will prevent the clutch from getting fully depressed by the foot each time it is applied leading to a shortened clutch life.

After driving for extended periods (8 to 10 hours per day spread over several days during road trips) with the right foot at 60 degree angle and toes pressing down on the A pedal and all the weight of the leg resting on the heel, it would result in my right heel developing a pain especially when taking the first few steps. The pain would start about week after the drive and It would last for a month.
I realized rather late that this was due to the driving and strain on the right heel.
I tend not to use cruise control given the ever changing conditions on our roads, feels a lot safer to be modulating the throttle according to the fast changing surroundings.

No issues now as I haven't driven for extended periods for quite a while. The daily 2 to 3 hour bumper to bumper traffic drives hasn't affected my heel though (touch wood :) ), only the right shoe sole at the heel tends to wear out quickly.