Dehydration is equally dangerous as consuming alcohol that’s according to a study done by the Physiology and Behaviour. Motorists who drive being dehydrated make twice as many mistakes on the road as of the normal drivers.
Five sips of water every hour keeps hydration levels in the green zone. The study reveals that the motorists who consume 25ml of water every hour drive efficiently than those who were dehydrated. Motorists driving dehydrated, make equal number of mistakes as of the drunk drivers do.
Professor Ron Maughan, Emeritus professor of Sport and Exercise Nutrition, initiated this study from Loughborough University, said; “We all deplore drink driving, but we don’t usually think about the effects of other things that affect our driving skills, and one of those is not drinking and dehydration.
There is no question that driving while incapable through drink or drugs increases the risk of accidents, but our findings highlight an unrecognised danger and suggest that drivers should be encouraged to make sure they are properly hydrated.”
“Most road accidents are caused by people driving under the influence, and DUIs cost the US government an estimated $37 billion in damages every year, the statistics in the UK are not much different although the data for last year is still not released.” states Addiction Helper.
The magnitude of errors made by dehydrated drivers were similar to the drivers with a blood alcohol content of 0.08%. Dehydration can also result in snoozed mental functioning, changes the mood and reduces the concentration on driving. It also results in reduced alertness and short-term memory loss. Overall impact is very dangerous with very serious driving errors and accidents.
The study was published in the journal Physiology and Behaviour. This research was based on a series of tests, carried out in controlled laboratory based driving simulator. Volunteers visited the laboratory at different occasions and used the simulator to record their test results. Researchers asked the drivers to use the simulator for two consecutive hours while virtually driving on a dual carriage way.
The test included a hard shoulder, simulated auditory rumble strip and slow moving vehicles that needed to be overtaken during the test. Dehydrated drivers were asked to consume 25 ml of water while others 200ml every hour.
Areas of errors noted were braking response time, lane departure time and drifting, touching or crossing the rumble strips or lane lines in both conditions and then the outcomes were compared according to the conditions. Results show that there was a big difference in both states.
47 errors were recorded during normal hydration while 101 errors when drivers were dehydrated. Error rate increased during the last quarter of two hours of testing. A 2 percent decrease in the body weight was also noted in final quarter of the time.
Researchers also found that driving warm cars lead to swift dehydration that directly affects driving behaviours. Drivers usually stop drinking water during driving because they do not want to stop for toilets. Have your say on this? Have you been affected by dry driving?
