The purpose of this study was to investigate the EMG characteristics of driver's upper extremity and driving performance for manipulating brake and accelerator pedal by using left and right hand control devices during simulated driving. The people with disabilities in the lower limb have problems in operation of the motor vehicle because of functional loss for manipulating brake and accelerator pedal. Therefore, if hand control device is used for adaptive driving controls in people with lower limb impairments, the disabled people can improve their quality of life by driving a motor vehicle. Six subjects were participated in this study to evaluate driving performance and muscle activities for operating brake and accelerator pedal by using two different hand controls (steering column mounted hand control and floor mounted hand control) in driving simulator. We measured EMG activities of six muscles (posterior deltoid, middle deltoid, triceps, biceps, flexor carpi radialis, and extensor carpi radialis) during pushing and pulling movement with different hand controls for acceleration and braking. STISim Drive 3 software was used for the performance test of different hand control devices in straight lane course for time to reach target speed and brake reaction time. While pulling the hand control lever toward the driver, normalized EMG activities of middle deltoid, triceps and flexor carpi radialis in subjects with disabilities were significantly increased (p < 0.05) compared to the normal subjects. It was also found that muscle responses of posterior deltoid were significantly increased (p < 0.05) when using the right hand control than left hand control. While pushing the hand control lever forward away from the driver, normalized EMG activities of posterior deltoid, middle deltoid and extensor carpi radialis in subjects with disability were significantly increased (p < 0.05) compared to the normal subjects. It was shown that muscle responses of middle deltoid, biceps and extensor carpi radialis were significantly increased when using the right hand control than left hand control. Brake reaction time and time to reach target speed in subjects with disability was increased by 12% and 11.3% on average compared to normal subjects. The subjects with physical disabilities showed a tendency to relatively slow acceleration at the straight lane course.