Under $25 Scores: These car seat gap fillers keep dropped stuff off the floor
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I like to think I keep my car relatively clutter-free, but that can change quickly. If I’m heading anywhere with my fiancée, we’ll get into the car with a minimum of four iPhones, two wallets, two sets of keys and two water bottles. Maybe we’ll have a snack or coffee in tow. She probably has a bag full of more stuff, I probably have some sunglasses. You get the point: There are only so many compartments to store these items, and they inevitably end up in our laps before ultimately tumbling underneath a seat and into the abyss — until we discovered the Drop Stop car seat gap filler.
Made with a polyester fiber filling encased in black neoprene, the Drop Stop is the kind of set-it-and-forget-it device that simply does its job. It cuts out a major nuisance and makes driving a little bit safer. Here’s how.
Drop Stop Car Seat Gap Filler
The Drop Stop roots out one of the more annoying parts of owning a car — and a source of distracted driving — by preventing personal belongings like your phone and wallet from falling into the treacherous gaps between your car’s front seats and center console.
How I found the Drop Stop
Because CNN Underscored readers have loved products that make their cars cleaner and more organized, one of my colleagues recommended I check out the Drop Stop. As one of the few driving suburbanites on our editorial staff, I ordered a pair on Amazon and installed them in my Toyota Corolla as soon as they arrived. Already, I wish I had known about them sooner.
Why the Drop Stop is a score
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that distracted driving resulted in more than 3,300 deaths in 2022. Of course, texting and other phone use was the culprit in a lot of these avoidable crashes. However, we’re all probably guilty of reaching for things — our phones, a sip of water, a dropped snack — when it could have waited for later. So any product that cuts down on that ill-advised reach is one worth having in your car.
Even if something falls into the crack between your seat and center console while you’re not on the road, it’s still such a hassle trying to get it out of there. You can see it. You can reach it, at least with the tips of your fingers. But gosh darn, your hand won’t fit deep enough to actually get a hold of the thing to bring it back from the depths. The Drop Stop will prevent that saga from ever happening.
Each order comes with a pair of Drop Stops, one for the driver’s seat and one for the passenger seat. Also included is an adhesive “slide-free pad” meant to hold your phone in place and a credit-card-shaped LED flashlight. The two extras feel a little unnecessary considering they help remedy the same problem the Drop Stop solves, but there’s no real downside to their inclusion.
Installation is a breeze, and the instructions are clearly illustrated on a printed guide that also includes a QR code linked to a YouTube tutorial. The front seats in my car have a chunky plastic cover at the hinge of the seat bottom and the back, and I was worried this would either prevent installation or make adjusting the seat nearly impossible. Wrong. Because the Drop Stop’s inners are so squishy, they stuffed up against the plastic without issue.
The black casing on the Drop Stop blends in just fine with the dark interior of my car. But even if your car has lighter seats, you’re really only replacing the shadows of the wretched gap next to them anyway. More-focused driving and fewer lost possessions make the Drop Stop a major score.
Note: The prices above reflect the retailers' listed price at the time of publication.
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