Feeling sad at the wheel is more risky than being tired

DRIVING while sad is far more likely to result in a crash than being tired or using a mobile phone, a study has shown.

Many motorways now display signs which warn motorists to pull over if they are feeling tired, but research suggests that a healthy emotional state is far more important for safe driving.

Feeling sad, angry or agitated behind the wheel raises the risk of an accident nearly 10-fold. In contrast, fatigue makes a crash three times more likely and talking on a mobile only doubles the risk, American researchers from Virginia Tech found.

Although parents may feel that having a child in the back seat is distracting, interacting with them while driving actually cuts the chance of a crash. Applying make-up or eating food was found not to cause significant problems.

“We have known for years that driver-related factors exist in a high percentage of crashes, but this is the first time we have been able to defini- tively determine the extent to which such factors do contribute to crashes,” said Dr Tom Dingus, lead author of the study and director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

“Driving while observably angry, sad, crying or emotionally agitated increases the risk of a crash by 9.8 times compared with model driving.”

To find out what distracts drivers, researchers used in-car video cameras to monitor the motoring of more than 3,500 people in the US. They found that more than half of motorists engage in some kind of risky behaviour every time they drive. The study period included more than 900 accidents.

Reaching for an item was found to raise the risk of a crash by nine times, although picking up a mobile was only six times. Dialling a number raised the risk more than 12 times. In contrast, chatting to a passenger barely raised the risk, and moving to music in the car seat was found to have no impact. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.