A study by the University of Bordeaux and the French CNRS reveals that driving at night is often accompanied by problems of drowsiness , which drivers sometimes try to counteract by drinking coffee. However, there is another equally effective but unknown method: exposing the driver to monochromatic blue light .
To prove it, 48 male volunteers drove 400 kilometers on a highway after sunset. In one experiment they received periodic exposures to blue light, while in another, conducted a week later, they consumed coffee. Counting the number of times each driver stepped on the outer line of the road, the researchers found that the number of failures was reduced practically the same (slightly more than 50%) with 400 mg of coffee in two doses than with exposure to bluish light .
Although the authors warn in the journal PLOS ONE that the study will have to be repeated with women and a larger sample, the results are encouraging, and could serve as the basis for developing a new standard method with light that prevents accidents caused when drivers they fall asleep at the wheel.
