It
is really quite remarkable that a pandemic can dictate how you sit in your car.
So
fat it was simple. Maa and Paa in the front two seats children, friends or
relatives in the back seat. No more! The do-gaj doori has changed all that.
With
two people in car, Paa is in the driver’s seat, he sits on the front right.
tMaa must sit in the rear left seat. That is as far away as possible. Do-gaj
doori.
The
idea being that the air exhaled by one person should not be inhaled by the other
person. It is recommended that even husband and wife must wear masks.
Now
to the next set of instructions. Which window should be open?
In
the summer month, with AC on, all windows are rolled up. All four windows
rolled up is not recommended. But who is going to drive around in the summer
without the AC? So there is no control over who is inhaling and who is
exhaling! Which is why curfew was imposed. Stay at home and be safe!
Ideally
it would be safest to drive with all four windows open. This will never happen,
we want luxury and not safety!
So
the worst case is, all four windows closed, a bad combination. The AC is on,
the air is being re-circulated. This becomes the highest risk configuration.
These
findings were done by two Indian Professors in the USA. Verghese Mathai at the
University of Massachusetes and Asimanshu Das of Brown University, USA.
They
examined the air flow inside a Toyota Prius moving at 50 mph (80 kmph) with
various configuration of windows open and closed.
The
common sense move by the average person would be to open the window next to
him/her. This option, to open and to closed windows, was not the best
configuration the Professors said. So much for common sense!
For
two persons in the car, if two windows are to be open, they should be the
windows on the opposite side.
The
driver should have the front left window open. The passenger in the rear left,
should have the rear right window open.
The
highest ‘At risk’ person, it turns out, is the driver! This is because that in
a moving car air enters the car from the rear window and exit from the front
window.
If
the windows, all four of them are open, creates two independent air flows on
the right and left side of the car interior. In this case very few germs are
transmitted between passengers sitting front right and rear left.
Again,
this will never happen. It is simply not practical to drive a car, even in the
city at a slow speed with all four windows rolled down.
Next
option according to the Professors. Three open windows are better than two open
windows. That make sense.
But
which three windows should be open.
Says
Professor Verghese Mathai, ‘ not that once we have two or more windows open the
concentration of air bone particles does not build up as much as there is good
cross ventilation and dilution of air’.
Three
open windows are better than two. Yes we agreed to that. But choosing which
window to close makes all the difference! In such a case it would be best if
the non-infected person is closest to the closed window.
Who
is the affected person? This calls for a covid test.
Or
you can through this whole idea out the window! It want make a difference which
window!
Stay
safe stay at home.