I am very short, and sit up rather straight. My head hits what should be the most comfortable parts of every kind of seating in the most uncomfortable way. This is an accurate representation of the sensation, when curved neck portion ends up at top of your skull, and doubly so, if it's a bucket seat. Special cushions help, in certain vehicles, which can also alleviate the seatbelt going practically across your throat. Our old Outback is tolerable, which is lovely.
We have a couple IKEA Poang chairs at home, and I need to make pillow booster-seats for the damned things, or it's just this image, lol
I just bought a 2024 Prius and as a short person I can attest that it's the best short-people car I've ever had. While it does suffer from most of the issues you would assume from not testing with shorter dummies, those issues don't really get in the way like they do in other cars. The seat and headrest feel great, the seatbelt is adjustable on the side so it won't cut into your neck, and it's very easy to get in and out of. 10/10 car for us short people.
I'm tall and long in the torso. The last serious car accident I was in my head bashed against the ceiling in a frightening way. Or, it would have been frightening if I had any memory of it. I had a brush burn on my forehead which could only have happened if my head was pushed way back from hitting the ceiling. Before you ask, I always wear a seatbelt.
Anyway, that's not why I'm replying. I'm generally ok with car headrests, although I usually have to lean the seat back pretty far to just fit in.
I bought a new office chair. I specifically chose one without a headrest, but it showed up with one anyway. At it's highest adjustment it sits right between my shoulders.
The world seems designed to fit such a narrow range of people.
Fact is, if you aren't in the central bell curve, then you aren't a profitable sector. Everything is tailored to the average these days in order to have the largest potential pool of customers from which to extract profit. If only one out of every ten people is tall enough to have problems with "regular sized" objects then that means only one out of every ten people are potential customers for your Big&Tall products. 99% of companies will elect to target the other 9/10 instead, even in a saturated market.
We have the Poangs as well, and I can't recline in them. The only comfortable position is to rip the cushion out and put it on the floor, and sit on the floor. >.<
I have the seatbelt cutting my neck problem too - and I'm not exactly short. :/
Yes those Poang chairs hurt my neck so bad, we had to get rid of it as it caused headaches whenever I sat in it. What about Airplane seats they also seem to push your neck forward in an in unergonomic way.