Summer Heat and Cars: What Fatal Mistakes Drivers Make

Disclaimer: According to the author, who has been driving for about 40 years, heat brings drivers and passengers far more problems and risks than the coldest winters. Under unfavorable circumstances, even completely healthy people can lose consciousness while driving, or even worse - get heat strokes, heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks.

This is the first question you should ask yourself when you want to leave the house, if you did not manage to leave at a relatively safe time early in the morning or in the evening, when there is no open sun. But if you really need to move during the day, it would be a good idea to look at the travel time and traffic jams in the navigator. Will you have to stand for half an hour or more? Then consider that you will literally find yourself in a gas chamber, where the air temperature is like in a sauna, the oxygen content is minimal, and you will breathe exhaust fumes from neighboring cars and formaldehyde from the plastic in your car.

For people with pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases, such a cocktail is unpredictably terrible. Especially in windless weather, when all the road crap accumulates at the level of your head.

At the same time, in most modern cars, relying on air recirculation in the cabin (that is, without allowing air from outside), hoping to completely fence off from the environment around, is not worth it. In the closed space of the car, the oxygen level rapidly decreases, which leads to a condition similar to what submariners experience in submarines, subject to oxygen starvation, or hypoxia.

With prolonged oxygen deficiency, not only headaches, pain, and nausea are possible, but also loss of consciousness, convulsions, and uncontrolled urination. You can forget about driving a car in such a state.

So the question of planning a trip makes sense.

First of all, you can't leave children and pets inside the car. There are enough cases in the world where "forgetful" parents have lost the most valuable thing in their lives, and even ended up in court for inhumane treatment of loved ones.

Well, if we are talking about inanimate objects and things that have no place in a car under the scorching sun, then the first place among the inappropriate ones is occupied by medicines whose medicinal properties are preserved at temperatures up to plus 25 degrees. If higher, then the chemical composition of the medicines changes! The same thing awaits creams of any type.

The second line in the anti-rating is for plastic bottles with water or drinks. In the heat, they release bisphenol A, a compound that leads to hormonal and metabolic failures in the body. In addition, water combined with plastic can become a lens for sunlight and cause a car fire.

It goes without saying that excessive heating is harmful to electronic gadgets of all kinds and types - phones, tablets, toys and battery-powered devices, whose lithium-ion batteries lose their working qualities.

Alcoholic drinks also do not like heating. In beer, for example, a smelly component 3-methyl-2-butene-thiol appears, from chocolate at a temperature of about 30 degrees and above only a brown liquid remains.

A separate topic is lighters, deodorants, throat sprays and aerosols. Due to the expansion of gases, they explode, causing a fire.

The answer to the question of where to put all the dangerous things in the heat is simple: firstly, you shouldn’t turn your car into a warehouse for things that are often unnecessary; secondly, you can store the most necessary things in cooler bags; thirdly, protect the car itself from overheating.

For this purpose, both cheap windshield liners and more expensive awnings are suitable, and, of course, enhanced sound insulation of the body, including the roof - in addition to acoustic comfort, you will also receive an effective thermal circuit that protects from the cold in winter and from the heat in summer.