How to Be More Effective Using Your Car Cup Holder

By Blake Masters

Cup Holders in automobiles have become a standard design. However, limiting yourself to just a cup or bottle is a waste of your car?s potential. Being useful for coins, trash, and high tech devices are just a few other examples. With multiple searches on the topic, here are some of the more popular results.

Cups and beverages are the natural choice. We thank the auto industry for including a cup holder in the interior design of our automobiles. Cups of coffee, bottles of water, and even the now popular energy drinks can accompany us on our morning commute to the office, or when picking the kids up from school. Minus the occasional spill, most of us just take this simple application for granted.

As cell phones and PDA's become more commonplace, so does putting these devices into the drink holder. With its location being closely within reach, it makes grabbing that call all the more easier. (I want to make a note that many states are passing "hands free" laws regarding cell phone usage, and although I agree we should be driving first, texting once stopped, the cup holder is still a logical place for these types of devices.) With most cars coming standard with multiple cup holders, there are numerous places for numerous devices, in addition to cell phones and PDA's, there are pagers, remotes for push button start cars, and gaming devices.

Change was another common treasure found in cup holders. Some of us might remember our university days, when change was a precious commodity. There only ever seemed to be pennies though, with the occasional nickel, and even the rarer dime, that was so dirty it would blend in with the pennies. Personally it isn?t an odd occurrence for me to count out twenty five or more pennies while waiting for my combo meal at the drive-thru.

I've saved the best (and newest) use for last, and if you've stumbled across this on the web you'll know what I'm talking about. There are a few articles floating around that describe a way to build a laptop tray extending from your auto cup holder. It involves PVC pipe and a lot of duct tape or glue, but it is quite the intricate design. The few articles I've read suggest it's only for when you're stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. Although a neat idea (I can't say I agree with using it any other time than when your car is parked and shut off) and for more information type "cup holder laptop tray" into the bigger search engines, and the first few articles will show you a photo or two as well as a description. - 29952

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