Could these €99 glasses cure your children’s car sickness?

THEY might look like part of a clown’s disguise, but these ‘glasses’ could cure children of one of the great scourges of family holidays – travel sickness.

Produced by French carmaker Citroën, the €99 spectacles – called Seetroën – are said to take just 12 minutes to alleviate symptoms and work in 95% of cases.

As a result, it says children can read, watch films or play in the rear seat of a car without fear of feeling sick.

The unusual design features four circular lens-less frames – two in front of the eyes, and two more at right-angles along the arms of the glasses.

Each holds a reservoir of a coloured liquid, the surface of which stays in line with the horizon, letting the wearer resynchronise their sense of balance in a car, plane, train, boat or coach.

This resolves the conflict between the senses that causes kinetosis – the scientific name for motion sickness.

Citroën claims up to 30million people in Europe suffer from motion sickness, which is caused when your brain struggles to work out whether you are moving or not as a result of conflicting signals from the eyes and the part of the middle ear responsible for our sense of balance.

For example, if you sit in the rear seat of a car looking at the headrest in front, your eye tells you there is no movement, but your ears – which detect acceleration, turning, rising, falling and slowing down – tell you there is, confusing your brain and causing nausea.

Children and adolescents going through puberty are particularly susceptible, although the Seetroën glasses are only suitable for those over ten – the age at which the inner ear is fully developed.

Citroën says that because the device does not contain lenses, it can be shared between people, and may even be worn over prescription glasses.

And for those concerned that they might look like an extra in a low-budget sci-fi movie, the car firm says the glasses can be taken off after the initial feelings of motion sickness have dissipated.

Similar glasses were developed by the French firm Boarding Ring to help sailors, but Citroën says it has adapted the design for use on any means of transport.