Drink And Drive

If there’s nowhere to stop for a toilet break, do you cut back on your fluid intake when you’re out on the road? If so you might, unwittingly, be as dangerous as a drunk driver

- Chris Tindall

The lack of toilets along the road network – and poor condition of some of those that are available – is well documented. But one consequence of this is that some drivers are reducing their fluid intake in order to avoid the need to stop – and this could be putting their (and other road users’) safety at risk and damaging their health.

This is because driving while dehydrated is as dangerous as being over the UK’s alcohol limit, yet many truck drivers are unaware of this.

Mistakes more than doubled

The link between concentration and hydration was made by researchers at Loughborough University, who found that the number of mistakes made by volunteers during a prolonged and monotonous driving simulator journey more than doubled when they became mildly dehydrated (see the ‘Drink in study findings’ panel on page 36).

These findings will make for uneasy reading among professional drivers, but perhaps even more worrying – given that the average age of truck drivers in the UK is 53 – is that a person’s ability to detect that they are dehydrated diminishes with age: by 65, very few of us still have the capability.

The conundrum is summed up by one female truck driver, who says: “What goes in must come out so I try not to drink. I know it’s bad for me but I can’t just pee up the side of the truck like the blokes.

“Even my doctor has warned me because I’m constantly dehydrated.”

Peter Hansen, MD of water education company Driving Hydration, says the issue can be condensed into two words: educate and facilitate.