Face Masks as a Factor in Eventuality of Changes in Driving Safety

During the COVID-19, pandemics or worsening virus situation, taxi and regular-route bus drivers are recommended to work in medical masks. However, the quantitative and qualitative influence of wearing protective face masks on safety of driving vehicles has not been previously studied. Therefore, this became the objective of preliminary studies to determine the specifics of the influence of a face protective mask on the change in psychophysiological qualities of a car driver as a factor in safety eventuality under urban traffic conditions.

The method of an open-ended survey of 108 healthy adult drivers was used to obtain a quantitative subjective assessment of the effect of face masks on changing driving safety conditions and a comfortable emotional state while driving. A qualitative analysis of assessment of the level of psychophysiological qualities of drivers wearing and not wearing a face mask was carried out using Meleti hardware-software complex.

A sharp decrease in neuropsychic functions with a simultaneous increase in quality of thinking and visual analysis of the traffic situation was revealed regarding the drivers wearing a face protective mask compared to those driving without a mask while the level of psychomotor reaction remains unchanged regardless of the gender of the driver.

The subjective assessment of survey participants of the effect of a face mask on professionally important, psychophysiological characteristics of drivers revealed a significant (41,7 %) or insignificant (20,4 %) decrease in reaction, while 38 % of drivers did not notice significant changes in driving because of the effect of the mask.

Based on these results, it is assumed that the face mask may serve as a predictor of a road pre-accident situation.

To assess the effect of the face mask on the driver, a coefficient of eventuality of reducing road safety is proposed. It is recommended to use it as an additional factor in a situational pandemic environment when developing recommendations for the use of face masks for car and bus drivers, and when analysing the causes of road accidents. 

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