“The Rise of Car Seasickness in Electric and Self-Driving Cars: Why Children are Most Vulnerable”

Children up to teenage age are most vulnerable

In the all-electric cars of the near future, passengers will get sick more often, experts warn. Even more unpleasant will be the situation with self-driving cars with full autopilot, where the nausea situation becomes more unpredictable.

Dizziness, headache and vomiting instead of a pleasant trip –

this is the so-called car seasickness,

which most travelers have experienced to one degree or another.

“Two-thirds of all passengers in the car suffered from nausea at some point, half of whom vomited,” says Belgian scientist Jelte Bos. And soon they will become much more, because electric and self-driving cars act more drastically on the human vestibular apparatus than vehicles with internal combustion engines.

Electric cars react much more quickly and sharply to the driver’s right foot pressing the gas pedal. Electric cars have higher torque (more torque provides more pulling power and thus you can accelerate faster). Acceleration and braking are more intense, so

the brain has to coordinate perception and balance even faster

Not yet available to the general public, but autonomous cars will cause even more car sickness. In vehicles with autopilot, steering wheel movements or accelerations come unexpectedly, and are much more abrupt.

Even now, with normal gasoline and diesel cars, it depends most on the driver whether the passengers will get sick – even if he is driving on a road with many sharp turns, with ups and downs. Anyone who turns too sharply or accelerates and stops quickly makes the situation worse for commuters.

Smoking in the car also increases the risk

from the occurrence of complaints.

Motion sickness occurs when the eyes and the vestibular apparatus receive conflicting information about the body’s position in space. In the back row of the car, children see in the back of the front seat a stable horizon with headrests on it, but the sense of balance notices that the body is moving. The brain is overloaded and the symptoms of being sick appear.

Children up to puberty are most often affected, as they are not yet able to properly process different sensory impressions. It almost never happens that the person behind the wheel gets sick while driving because he always has his eyes on the road.

Nausea occurs for one simple reason –

the balance center is not coupled with vision

The gaze of the passengers is usually directed mostly outside the car, but to the side, not through the windshield.

The best advice is for drivers to slow down as much as possible when cornering and for back seat passengers to look through the windscreen.

The healthy ingredients in peppermint are soothing to the stomach and can ease discomfort while traveling. Boil two to three teaspoons of the spicy leaves in a cup of hot water, let it steep for about five minutes, and then remove the leaves with a small strainer. Pour the tea into a thermos and sip it while you’re on the go. The fresh aroma of mint also contributes to well-being.

It’s not unusual

passengers to react sensitively to the smell of plastic and leather

especially in newer cars. Then it is useful to squeeze a few drops of orange on a cloth. Anyone who smells it feels much better. Alternatively, you can also put fresh orange peels in the car.