Duluth – I first gasped and gestured harder and swearing when the jeep cut me off and then slowed down to a few notches below the speed limit. These things I remember.
However, the sensor I was wearing captured the heart rate and electrical changes in my skin, revealing the “black box” of the vehicle, along with the aggressive braking and acceleration, a rapidly beating heart. It didn’t help that when I was almost always stressed, it was in the middle of a work day.
“This was clear when you were a little more upset you definitely had a bad driving experience,” said Turuna Seecharan, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Duluth University.
Seecharan said I should find ways to calm myself down before driving to a debriefing or interview so that stress doesn’t affect my choices.
She and graduate student Sakibul Hasan Nahid study the role of emotions that stress plays in driving. Is there a correlation?
I wore the sensor for a few days to better understand the research. My data shows that I’m less stressed when I’m not in the middle of a work day, even if something unexpected happens on the road.
This study could be useful for driver training programs. Or, stress, fatigue and anger can all be used to make cloud decisions while driving, leading to technology that alerts stress-level drivers to stress-level drivers.
“It’s the same thing, just as if you’re too tired or you shouldn’t get into the car if you’re drunk, don’t get into the car,” Seecharan said. “Beware of your emotional state.”
