A Handle to Help You Get Out of the Car

A low car seat tips you back. Getting into it, all you do is let go. Getting out means bringing your weight forward over your feet, and the only thing in reach is a door that swings when you lean on it.

Somebody on the Parkinson's UK forum had that solved. Asked in a thread for their most useful gadget, they named a handle for the car, a short bar that slots into the door's latch.

If you can sit down into a car but can't stand back up out of it, this is the first thing to try.

What is a car assist handle?

A steel bar about nine inches long, with a foam grip at one end and a short metal tip at the other. The tip slides into the latch striker on the door pillar, the upright the door closes onto. The handle stands out from the pillar for you to hold.

The one to buy is the Stander HandyBar. The forum owner's bar is the same shape, an elongated T with a foam-covered handle and a business end almost like a mini pick. Stander's own page puts it at a pound of steel, rated for 350 pounds, with a seat belt cutter and a window breaker built in for emergencies.

A patient guidebook says these handles are sometimes called a car cane, and that they're light enough to live in the glove box.

How do you use it?

Open the door, slot the tip into the striker and pull. It pulls you up, then it steadies you until your balance is back. The forum owner put it like this:

...when you want to get out of your car, you place the end of the bar in the lock piece which is located on the door pillar of the car. In this position the bar provides a means of pulling yourself up [from] your seat and then by shifting your grip you can use the bar to steady yourself until you've gained your balance.
jaykay, on the Parkinson's UK forum

On Cool Tools in 2015, Roger Knights wrote that the HandyBar he'd bought for aging parents ten years earlier was helpful.

Trualta, a caregiver site, lists seniors, people home from surgery and people with arthritis or a pregnancy among those who use one. It says the handle gives you something stable to hold onto, so the move out of the seat isn't a slip or an awkward one.

Digby is halfway up out of the car seat with his feet on the driveway. He leans his weight on a short bar hooked into the loop on the pillar behind the seat. His other paw hangs free, and he's smiling.

Will it fit your car?

Open the door and look at the pillar it shuts onto. Stander says the handle needs a U-shaped door latch striker there, a loop of metal held on by two bolts or screws. A car with a single round striker bolt instead won't take it at all.

That's stricter than Trualta, which says most of these handles are universal but that you should double-check with your car anyway. Take the maker's word.

Parkinson's UK stocks the HandyBar in its own shop, and the charity's listing adds that it works on either side, driver or passenger.

For a car with a bolt, Stander's answer is the CarCaddie, an adjustable nylon strap that buckles around the window frame. You pull on the strap instead of the latch.

What it won't do

The bar doesn't lift anyone. It gives you something fixed to pull on, and the pulling is yours.

If somebody else has to do the lifting, Stander makes a different thing for that, the Handy Handle, which it lists as a free-standing caregiver transfer aid.

The car door is shut, and Digby walks up the driveway toward his front door with a raspberry shopping bag in one paw. He's smiling.

Which one to order

Look at the door pillar before you order. A U-shaped striker with two screws, and the HandyBar slides straight in, no modification needed. A single bolt, and it's the CarCaddie strap instead.