Road Rage Can Harm Your Health: Commuter Stress

Commuter Stress Swoosh. A blue sedan nearly sideswipes my car. The driver gives me a weird look. No wonder: I'm at the wheel of a Ford Taurus, with a tangle of wires taped to my face and neck, a respiration monitor strapped around my chest, and a bunch of other gizmos sending data about my vital signs to computers stacked on the front and back seats. I look like the star of A Commuter's Clockwork Orange.

University of Iowa assistant professor of engineering Thomas Schnell is crammed into the seat behind me. Schnell created this lab-on-wheels to gauge how a motorist's body reacts to driving. He wants carmakers to use his findings to design "smart" cars that make driving less stressful. I'm taking his rolling research facility for a white-knuckle evening spin in Chicago -- home to some of the nation's worst rush-hour traffic -- to learn what happens to the human body during a long, frustrating commute.

So at 5:15 on a Monday, with a storm whipping in off Lake Michigan, I pull out of a downtown parking lot and begin creeping along Interstate 90, heading west behind a line of cars that stretches as far as the eye can see. Now and then, the pace picks up, but, just as quickly, it slows to a halt, red brake lights glowing in the twilight.

If I had to do this every day, I'd grind my teeth to dust. After 45 minutes, Schnell and I have gone just 10 miles. As the car crawls along, Schnell occasionally asks, "What is your level of fun?" He notes my responses, some of them unprintable, on a clipboard. Here's what the computers I'm tethered to record:

I begin breathing harder and faster. My respiration rate leaps from 12 to 17 breaths per minute. My heart rate jumps from 74 to 80 beats per minute. The electrodes taped to the corrugator and orbicularis oculi muscles in my forehead show increased activity (Translation: My brow furrows and I squint a lot). And I'm not even late to pick up a kid at band practice.

While I was in no danger of keeling over, my heart rate and other symptoms offered clear evidence that I was under stress, says Robert Bonow, MD, president of the American Heart Association (AHA). Over time, that stress could take a heavy toll. If you are among the roughly 113 million Americans who drive to work each day, you're probably grimacing with recognition. With traffic congestion getting worse each year, anyone who travels by car to the office or plant, or who simply shuttles kids from school to violin lessons to slumber parties, may be exposing himself or herself to serious hidden health threats. Experts say your daily slog could be poisoning your relationships, making you physically ill, or even putting your life at risk.

How bad is it? According to The Road Information Program, a Washington, D.C., research group that promotes safer highways, commuters in the nation's largest urban areas spend the equivalent of about one and a half workweeks a year stuck in traffic -- a 41 percent increase since 1990. Smaller cities are feeling the crunch too.

The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the typical American motorist drives about 14,000 miles a year -- up 60 percent since 1969. Government statistics show that people ages 35 to 54 -- the years when many divide their time among jobs, kids and parents -- do the most driving.