Safe Driving During Cold Season
- Selina Paul
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Life rarely pauses when we're feeling under the weather. Despite the need to slow down and rest, responsibilities and routines still call, and commutes still need to be made. In this rush to keep going, it’s easy to underestimate the effect illness can have on driving skills and decision-making behind the wheel. During this winter cold and flu season, it’s important to know the risks of driving while sick and what you can do to safely manage symptoms while driving.
An estimated 1 million people in the U.S drive with a cold on any given day.
While most sickness symptoms are typically manageable at home, they pose new threats when you’re on the road.
Dangerous Distractions
Anything that takes your focus off driving is a distraction, and when you’re feeling unwell, your cold can become one too.
Minor symptoms like a runny nose or sneezing can lead to manual distractions. Think reaching for tissues when you need to cough or sneeze. With your hand off the wheel, you are less prepared to respond to hazards.
Symptoms can also lead to you becoming visually distracted. Most people close their eyes when they sneeze, and at high speeds, a single sneeze could have you travelling a significant distance during the brief time your eyes are shut. During the time your eyes are closed, you are essentially driving blind.
If you’re going 60 mph sneezing would cause you to drive about 50 feet with your eyes closed.
Taking your eyes off the road or a hand off the wheel for even a second is always dangerous and raises your risk of being involved in a collision. When you’re sick, however, this is not always easy to avoid, which is what makes driving while ill dangerous.
Physical Impairment
A heavy cold is often accompanied by headaches, fatigue and dizziness, and these symptoms can leave your mind feeling foggy. This makes concentrating on the complex task of driving extremely challenging. Drivers who are sick are more likely to miss important details related to changing road conditions or signals from pedestrians and other motorists.
A person’s driving skills can decline by as much as 50% when they’re sick.
Other common sickness, like muscle weakness and drowsiness, can result in impaired coordination and significantly reduced reaction times. Delays in braking, failure to quickly swerve away from hazards, or a slow response to environmental conditions are factors that make the likelihood of being involved in a collision much more prevalent.
Slower and disengaged behaviour as a result of illness is similar to other forms of impaired driving, like drunk driving and drowsy driving. When you’re fighting off a heavy cold, your physical and mental abilities can be compromised, which in turn reduces your ability to operate your vehicle. This puts not just you but everyone on the road at risk.
If you are trying to treat your cold symptoms with over-the-counter cold remedies, the side effects, which can include drowsiness, dizziness, and blurred vision, can make driving that much more dangerous. Some common liquid cold medications can even contain alcohol as an ingredient, and many warn against driving after they have been ingested.
“A dose of a commonly available cold remedy can take you nearly halfway to the drink-drive limit”.
Staying Safe on the Road
The best option when you’re sick is to stay home and rest. A good night’s sleep is essential to both recovery and our everyday ability to drive safely. Hundreds of road accidents are caused each year by drowsy driving behaviors such as difficulty staying in a lane, inconsistent speeds, and abrupt steering and braking.
However, sometimes staying home is not an option, or you may start feeling ill only after your drive has begun. If you experience symptoms of fatigue or weakness while driving, pull over to a safe area to take a short nap or to get out your vehicle and stretch. Excessive warmth or dehydration can worsen the effects of illness. Having fluids on standby and good airflow in your vehicle, for example by winding down the windows or turning up your AC, can also provide temporary relief and help keep you alert.
Safe driving starts with being well enough to do it, and sometimes pushing through can mean putting lives at risk. So next time you have a case of the common cold, think twice before getting behind the wheel.
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