Blue light may improve men's driving at night

Having a blue light on his dash board improves a man's night driving driving.

According to a study published in PloS One, scientists wanted to figure out how to make driving at night safer - given the effects of fatigue.

In order to test what worked in reducing inappropriate line crossings, the scientists had 48 men drive for about 400kms at night, giving them coffee or decaf during their breaks, and exposed them to random flashes of continuous blue light while they drove.

While eight of the participants had dropped out of the study citing the distracting nature of the light, of the remaining 40 tended to drive better when they had the light on their dashboards, or drank coffee.

"In conclusion, we demonstrated that, provided it does not dazzle drivers, continuous nocturnal blue light exposure could be used as an in-car countermeasure to fight nocturnal sleepiness at the wheel in both young and middle-aged drivers. Used occasionally, it does not affect subsequent sleep.," the researchers wrote.

The researchers were quick to point out however that this was a small trial and the participants had all been men, so it may require further study.