Self driving cars might increase the levels of motion sickness in drivers, new study points out.
The best part of using a self driving car, is the fact that you can do more things while being behind the wheel without worrying what’s going on the road, as the car has the controls. But while not being worried about what happens on the road, drivers might be confronting with motion sickness symptoms.
During an experiment, researchers created a set of questions they have used on 3,200 persons living in six different countries. They were asked mainly about what they were doing while they were behind the wheel of a self driving car.
People from the United States replied that they usually watch movies, send texts, read or even play video games on their phones or tablets while being in the car. It has been proved that all of these activities are factors that contribute to motion sickness as during all these activities you are looking down towards the screen.
Participants from other countries have given similar answers, when it came to the activities they had in self driving car. 50% of the people from India responded the same, 40% of Chinese people, and 30% of the people from Australia, Japan and UK. 12% of the respondents admitted to having dealt with motion sickness while being behind the wheels of a self driving car.
The reason why motion sickness is most common in self driving cars than in standard vehicles, is due to more factors.
The fact that you don’t have control over the direction of the car and you cannot anticipate the direction of the vehicle.But what highly elevates the motion sickness in this type of cars are the occupations the driver finds instead of controlling the steering wheel.
Self driving cars switch you from driver to passenger and automatically you loose control over the direction of motion of the car.
Researchers advise people who own a self driving car to avoid activities that can provoke motion sickness, like watching movies or playing on their devices and it is preferred to keep an eye on the road or even sleep.
Another factor that might help keep motion sickness symptoms away, is choosing a self driving car with seats that recline completely and have bigger windows. Providing a position of you phone or tablet that would allow people to look straight ahead or heads-up. All these solutions might help people keep at distance symptoms like nausea or vertigo while they are in the car
Image Source: cloudfront.net
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