Patent ID: 7475902

Claim:
A steering wheel comprising a wheel body joined to a steering shaft and an airbag apparatus, the wheel body includes as components a ring for holding at steering operation, a boss disposed proximate a center of the ring to be coupled to the steering shaft, and a spoke connecting the ring and the boss, when the boss is coupled to the steering shaft, a ring plane on top of the ring is disposed diagonally downward and rearward, the wheel body is divided into a shaft side division disposed proximate the steering shaft and joined to the steering shaft, and a ring side division disposed proximate the ring, the ring side division being rotatable with respect to the shaft side division such that the ring plane is aligned along the vertical direction, the boss includes a rotation drive mechanism that rotates the ring side division to align the ring plane generally vertically, the airbag apparatus includes an inflatable airbag and is disposed on top of the boss of the wheel body, the airbag when inflated expands from inside of the ring toward outside of the ring, and is formed greater than an outer diameter of the ring, and the rotation drive mechanism completes its operation to align the ring plane generally along the vertical direction by the time a driver contacts the inflated airbag in the course of forward motion.