Blog

5 Things You Should Not Do in Your Car

1. Eat while driving

Eating while driving can cause drivers to look away from the road, focus on their food and take one or more hand off the wheel. Unwrapping packaging, applying condiments, holding food and unscrewing lids are just some of the activities that can cause a driver to be distracted and become dangerous. In fact, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that eating or drinking increases the chances of an accident or near-accident by nearly 39%.

Little snacks or drinks such as a bottle of water are acceptable, as long as your attention is on the road and your grip on the wheel. However, spilling drinks is a huge distraction for the driver, and can be dangerous especially if it is hot.

Credit: Flickr

2. Put your feet on the dashboard

Doing this puts your body in a lot of danger in the event of a crash. Airbags are deployed at a speed of between 100 to 220 miles per hour, and this could cause catastrophic injuries. One woman’s foot was thrown into her face and broke her nose, and she also broke her leg in multiple places, because her feet were on the dashboard.

Credit: Pexels

3. Use headphones/earphones

This can decrease awareness by making outside noises harder to hear, such as horns and upcoming vehicles. Although it is safer than using your phone to your ear, using a hands-free system is preferable. Or just play your music through your bluetooth or aux chord system.

Credit: Piqsels

4. Overfill your car

Either storing or driving with too many items in your boot can be dangerous. Not only could it make your car a target for theft, but it could block visibility when driving. Lack of vision out of the rear window can cause dangerous blind spots and make backing up near impossible. Also, it could cause injuries when either breaking hard or in an emergency, as items could move or fly around the car.

Credit: Pxfuel

5. Smoke

Alongside being a distraction, research shows that smoking in your car can create a hazardous quality of air, polluting the small space with nicotine and other smoke particles. In fact, a smoker's car has similar levels of tobacco toxins inside as that of a pub prior to the introduction of the smoking ban (so, rather a lot).

Second-hand exposure to children is very dangerous to their health. It is already illegal to smoke with children in the car in parts of Canada, Australia and the US.

There is an element of third-handing exposure just from travelling in a smokers’ car, where pollutants in the car are released into the mouth and onto the skin of passengers. Cleaning is also found to have little or no effect on the levels of smoke pollution within the vehicle, it cannot be cleaned out. Smokers’ cars also have more ash and burn marks inside, This all reduces the quality of the car and can make it more difficult to sell in the long run.

Credit: Flickr