{"id":5321,"date":"2015-02-17T05:24:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T19:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=5321"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:12:09","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:12:09","slug":"driving-with-the-common-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/safety-2\/driving-with-the-common-cold\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving With The Common Cold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sneezewhendriving\"<\/a>Heaps of parents heave large sighs of relief when the summer break is over and the kids go back to school.\u00a0 There are, however, downsides.\u00a0 Downside number one is that Mum\u2019s Taxi duty kicks back in, especially if school is too far for the kids to walk to but is not so far away that you get a school bus service (as happens in rural areas).\u00a0 Downside number two is that the coughs and colds start coming back home, especially when the weather seems to read the school calendar and decides to turn cooler the moment term starts.<\/p>\n

Driving with a cold is not like normal driving.\u00a0 You\u2019re not sick enough to avoid driving \u2013 it\u2019s just a sniffle, for goodness sake, so you can\u2019t really get out of it.\u00a0 Take a good bit of paracetamol or aspirin and you\u2019re OK.\u00a0 Sort of.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a wonder that they haven\u2019t tried to ban or warn you about the dangers of driving with a cold yet.\u00a0 We all know about not drinking and driving, and the hazards of taking wacky baccy or worse before getting behind the wheel.\u00a0 For those who wouldn\u2019t dream of overindulging in alcohol prior to driving or getting remotely near any illegal substances, they still warn us about not driving tired, as fatigue slows reaction times and increases the risk of falling asleep behind the wheel.\u00a0 Driving with a cold has its own hazards and risks.<\/p>\n

For a start off, you get that general feeling of lethargy and malaise that creeps in when you are fighting off a virus.\u00a0 Pain in the sinuses and\/or throat (if the aspirin hasn\u2019t quite done its duty) imposes on your consciousness, sucking your concentration.\u00a0 Sipping one of the traditional remedies for this particular type of misery \u2013 a decent slug of whisky or brandy in orange juice \u2013 is, of course, out of the question when there\u2019s driving to be done.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve also got the more physical visible effects of a cold.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got the runny nose, the sneezing, the snot and the coughing to cope with.\u00a0 These are difficult to deal with when you\u2019re driving, especially in town when the traffic\u2019s a bit heavy.\u00a0 You feel that drip pouring down your nasal passages and threatening to trickle out of your schnozz. \u00a0The traffic is heavy and you need to make that crucial lane change, or you\u2019re part way around a multi-lane roundabout or you\u2019re just coming up to the lights and expect them to turn orange.\u00a0 Do you go reaching for your tissues or hanky and try to deal with the offending drip?\u00a0 Or will this take your attention off the business of driving at a critical moment?\u00a0 Or is it safer to just let the drip cascade down your face (eeeeeewww!).<\/p>\n

Sneezing is worse.\u00a0 As we all learned from those trivial snippets that circulate around the place, it is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.\u00a0 You feel that inevitable prickle in the back of your nose, your chest expands as you draw a deep breath for the Ah, then you explode in the Choo, eyes closed and goodness knows what racing out of you at a fair clip (popular wisdom has it that a sneeze does about 160 km\/h; Mythbusters puts it at 54 km\/h \u2013 faster than you ought to be going in heavy traffic, anyway!).\u00a0 During that split second, your whole body is concentrated on the sneeze, not on the road.\u00a0 There\u2019s no way you could react if someone raced across the intersection or slammed on the brakes in front of you.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve covered your sneeze with the crook of your arm the way that the health boffins tell us to, you\u2019ve only got one hand on the wheel at the time.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t, then you spray virus-laden moisture all over the steering wheel and possibly the inside of the windscreen.\u00a0 (Rub a bit of hand sanitizer over the wheel \u2013 something we probably all ought to do regularly anyway, when you consider how often we touch it).\u00a0 And let\u2019s not even think about the thick yellow snot stage of a cold\u2026<\/p>\n

Coughing is probably an even worse hazard, especially if you get that dry tickly cough that just won\u2019t go away and leaves you in uncontrollable paroxysms of hacking away again and again.\u00a0 Medications that control this sort of cough usually come with warnings not to drive or operate heavy machinery afterwards.\u00a0 However, uncontrollable coughing fits lasting a good ten seconds or more don\u2019t exactly make you the most alert and responsive driver.\u00a0 Pulling over to the side of the road until your lungs have settled down might have to be the safest option.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s a responsible road user to do?\u00a0 The obvious answer is not to drive at all when you\u2019ve got a cold and to use this as an excuse if possible.\u00a0 However, we all know that there are times when you can\u2019t plead the common cold as a way of getting out of your obligations.\u00a0 You have to pick up the kids from school or your friend from the airport.\u00a0 You have to drop off that important package.\u00a0 You have to get that big job finished.\u00a0 So you have to drive.<\/p>\n

\"sneeze<\/a>The best options are to take it slowly just in case, take routes that avoid high traffic if possible and keep your eyes open for handy places to pull over.\u00a0 Practice controlling coughs and sneezes before you have to do it in a critical situation.\u00a0 And keep the box of tissues on your lap for easy access.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget to clean up the used tissues, and to disinfect the steering wheel and gear change knob when you\u2019ve finished driving.<\/p>\n

Safe, healthy and happy driving,<\/p>\n

Megan http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/potreb-kredit.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heaps of parents heave large sighs of relief when the summer break is over and the kids go back to school.\u00a0 There are, however, downsides.\u00a0 Downside number one is that Mum\u2019s Taxi duty kicks back in, especially if school is too far for the kids to walk to but is not so far away that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-safety-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5321"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11795,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321\/revisions\/11795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}