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The patrol services of the world vigilantly monitor that the driver does not get behind the wheel in a state of intoxication. However, not only alcohol can lead to an accident, but also such an innocent phenomenon as a slight cold.
Cardiff University psychologists Andrew Smith and Samantha Jamson (A. Smith, S. Jamson) analyzed the behavior of 25 British students, half of whom were randomly selected, and the other half formed from those who had recently caught a cold *. Participants had to pass two attention tests.
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In the first, they were required to avoid collisions of geometric shapes flying at each other along random trajectories and in a random direction. At the same time, they had to have time to press a special pedal if any of the figures corresponded to the pattern that was shown in the margins of the screen.
The second test was a conventional car driving simulator that noted and counted all cases when the test participant missed the desired turn and ran into a passerby in his virtual car or flew into the oncoming lane. The program also noted less serious violations, such as speeding or not following traffic lights.
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As both tests revealed, students suffering from a cold showed far worse attention and coordination than those who were healthy. There was not a single category of measurements where they showed the same or even better results than their healthy counterparts. For example, subjects with a cold were more likely to be hit by a pedestrian by as much as a third.
The fact that drivers driving with a cold are more likely to get into road accidents is unlikely to surprise traffic inspectors – it is known that in autumn and spring, when the prevalence of colds increases, the number of accidents not related to road conditions and weather factors also increases. However, it was previously believed that only such physical manifestations of the disease as increased tearfulness and sneezing were to blame. Thus, while sneezing, the driver’s eyes involuntarily close: in the second that he loses control of the road, his car rushes along the highway for a segment of about 50-100 meters. If at this moment the neighboring car abruptly changed lanes or overtook, it is almost impossible to avoid a collision.
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The reaction slowdown in experiments conducted by Andrew Smith and Samantha Jamson is comparable to alcohol intoxication to the degree for which a license is taken away (in the UK, 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood is enough for this). It turns out that sneezing and coughing drivers should be deprived of the right to drive by the police? Probably only those who are not being treated – after all, you can cope with a dangerous condition in the most banal way: as the authors of the study note, any medication that relieves symptoms erases all differences in behavior between a sick and a healthy person. Any caffeinated drinks will also help, as caffeine increases alertness and responsiveness for a short time.
* A. Smith, S. Jamson «An investigation of the effects of the common cold on simulated driving performance and detection of collisions: a laboratory study». BMJ Open, 2014, № 2(4).