Hygiene freaks look away now. Not only can you get Legionnaire’s Disease from your car’s windscreen wiper water (see New driving danger), but according to Aston University microbiologists your car harbours even more horrible, hidden dangers. Having swabbed a random car and analysed the results, the scientists found the car was swarming with nasty bacteria that can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and skin infections. Yuck.
The microbiologists were carrying out research for motoring store chain Halfords, and besides the bacteria nasties they also discovered that half of us clean the insides of our cars less than once a month (not to mention the half of us who spill food and drink in our cars and the third of us who have pets in our cars too – er, guilty on all counts, I’m afraid).
So if you haven’t given the inside of your car a proper good clean in ages (er, guilty again), now’s the time to do so, unless you want to go down with a horrible illness vaguely resembling the plague. There again, you could always pop down to Halfords for one of their nice car cleaning kits (not that I’m suggesting any untoward association between the study and the store’s promotional activities, of course…).