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Nothing to Sneeze At

Here’s a curious reminder of the dangers of moving at speed in a car: Simply sneezing — closing your eyes for a second — can get you into trouble.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 5:58 am and is filed under Traffic safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Nothing to Sneeze At”

  1. Rob Says:
    September 15th, 2009 at 8:37 am

    This is actually of serious concern to me.

    I have a large problem of sneezing whenever sunlight suddenly hits directly on my face, weird I know.

    It happens when Im driving, and I am constantly in fear it will cause me to get in a fender bender.

  2. Julia Says:
    September 15th, 2009 at 11:21 am

    Rob,

    It’s not weird, it’s something that affects 18-35% of the general population (myself included), and it’s known as the photic sneeze reflex. Growing up, I assumed this was a reaction that all people experienced when looking into the sun, but it’s actually a genetically inherited trait; described by some as a “birth defect”.

    There’s a good page on Wikipedia about it, along with lots of references and additional source material. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex

    It can be a dangerous and uncontrollable situation, and you’re not the only one concerned by it!

  3. John Says:
    September 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    You have to anticipate and set up for the momentary sneeze, which takes your eyes off the road for considerably less than a second.

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

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