Why you should never put your feet up on the dashboard of a car, woman warns

It's a common way of sitting but could leave you with serious injuries

(Audra Tatum)

Many children and adults alike put their feet up on the dashboard of a car when travelling in the passenger seat - it’s comfortable and relaxing.

However it’s also potentially a lot more dangerous than you might have thought, and one woman is telling her story to spread that message.

Two years ago, Audra Tatum from Walker County, Georgia, USA, was sitting in the front of her car while her husband was driving.

Audra Tatum

As she was wont to do, she had her legs crossed and one foot on the dashboard, despite her husband’s warnings that she may injure herself doing so.

She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt either.

Out of nowhere, a car pulled out in front of them and Tatum and her husband T-boned him, the front of their car crashing into the side of the other.

As the airbag ballooned, Tatum’s foot was thrown into her face, breaking her nose in the process.

“Basically my whole right side was broken, and it’s simply because of my ignorance,” Tatum told CBS News.

She had to have several operations and weeks of physical therapy and still walks with a limp now.

According to doctors, had she had her foot on the floor, she wouldn’t have had to go to hospital at all.

(Audra Tatum)

And Tatum is now trying to raise awareness of what happened to her and warn others not to sit in cars with their feet up on the dashboard.

“I keep telling everybody, you don’t want this life,” she said. “You don’t want the pain and agony every day.”

It’s a huge price to pay for simply sitting a certain way.

“This horrific crash shows the importance of having both feet on the floor of the car and wearing a seat belt at all times when driving,” a spokesperson for road safety organisation Brake told The Independent.

“I regret it every single day,” Tatum told NewsChannel9.

“Every hour of every day because every time I put pressure on my leg I feel it… Do not sit like that. If you sit like that you’re asking for it.”