Car sickness - who used to get it and is it still a "thing"?

[mikeyr]

Had this as a child and couldn't go for more than half hour in a car without throwing up spectacularly. Not popular when going on school trips in other parents's cars as you can imagine!

Had two kids since then and neither have struggled with car journeys - they'll happily read, play games, etc.

But...we had lots of Rovers as a kid and the ride quality was pretty floaty! Have modern firmer riding cars actually helped? Or am I just lucky with the kids having iron constitutions?

[thatdude]

My wife gets "car sick" / motion sick...she prefers to drive, and dosnt like soft, wafty, wallowy rides (like her fathers 7 series). She's ok as a pillion on my motorbike, but gets a bit unwell in my (manual) car. She likes slush-box autos because of their smoothness. She gets ill with first-person perspective computer games too

[R8VXF]

I used to get it when in the back of a car (I haven't been on a long journey in the back for a long time now so not sure if I still do, though I do get seasick on very rough water so it might still affect me), my sister still does. The change in ride quality makes no difference it seems.

[SuperVM]

My wife suffers from it, which is pretty irritating in honesty. I know I should probably be more understanding about it, but it involves taking every b-road at two miles an hour so she doesn't have the inconvenience of carrying a ginger tablet around with her. As for the kids, my eldest suffers from it a bit, but is usually okay apart from shortly after having woken up.

[zeduffman]

Only when I'm hungover...

[dudleybloke]

mikeyr said:

Had this as a child and couldn't go for more than half hour in a car without throwing up spectacularly. Not popular when going on school trips in other parents's cars as you can imagine!

Had two kids since then and neither have struggled with car journeys - they'll happily read, play games, etc.

But...we had lots of Rovers as a kid and the ride quality was pretty floaty! Have modern firmer riding cars actually helped? Or am I just lucky with the kids having iron constitutions?

My bro used to get sick in the back of my dads maestro but not any other car.

[anonymous-user]

I still get it quite badly, but it massively depends on the car and of course, whether I'm driving or not. For instance if I go to a meeting as a passenger in my colleagues XC90 I will 100% feel sick by the time we get there!

[andy-xr]

thatdude said:

My wife gets "car sick" / motion sick...she prefers to drive, and dosnt like soft, wafty, wallowy rides

Mine's same, doesnt like driving another car than hers so when we go in mine on a trip more than an hour or so she has travel bands for her wrists that seem to work well, she uses them on trains and planes as well

[MartinQ]

I used to get it as a child, but only if I was on the Gameboy. Head up and looking outside and I was fine.

[RobM77]

I get car sick very easily as a passenger. To avoid it I need a clear view of the road ahead, preferably in the front seat and I need to keep my eyes on the horizon - looking down at a map or finding a CD etc is best avoided unless I'm on a smooth motorway. Funnily enough I've done a bit of racing instruction over the years and I'm normally fine if I keep looking up ahead - the worst things for car sickness are unpredictable jerky driving and soft suspension; as a passenger instructing in a race spec road legal car or two seater track car I'm normally fine.

Naturally, this extends to other forms of travel - I can't read on trains and I get terribly sea sick too.

I can get car sick if I'm driving if it's a pretty rubbish modern car with a laggy throttle and rubbery laggy steering (Peugeot 407 for example) - if there's enough of a delay then I guess my brain isn't ready for the movement. In 20 years of driving though I've never felt even remotely sick when I'm driving myself in a decent road car or a racing car.

[Andyjc86]

The only time iver ever had it, was when I was a rear passanger in an XF. It was too wafty for my stomach.

[motco]

I suspect everybody gets this to a lesser or greater degree. My son who, unlike his sister, has an iron gut with regard to this, turned green on a fairground ride where every cue to position, posture and balance was false deliberately. I have it on boats and hovercraft, in cars to a lesser extent, and hardly at all on aircraft. I have thrown up once on an aircraft - not on a long haul to Australia, or Japan, but over the Lake District en route to Edinburgh! It is the subtle 'G' forces from banking and sudden changes in altitude that are felt but not seen; that 'I'm getting heavier' feeling that does it.

If I drive on a track day generally I am fine even sliding and chucking about on bends and chicanes, but if a 'sideways moment' that I was not expecting happens I can feel nauseous for a couple of hours afterwards. Driving my son's Z4M on track is okay in general, but as a passenger I cannot survive more than a lap. It's the extreme 'G' forces that do it and the claustrophobic cabin. As a passenger in my Westfield, though, I am much better. It is fundamentally a conflict of sensory inputs: in a cabin on a ship the surroundings seem stable by eye, but the balance organs say they're not. Result? Puke! On deck where the vessel's movements are sensed by eye and inner ear equally, all is well except in extremis. I have yet to discover a guaranteed remedy. Stugeron is the best pill, I find, but pressure bands seem to help for my daughter. One thing's certain; it is NOT psychological!

[anonymous-user]

Andyjc86 said:

The only time iver ever had it, was when I was a rear passanger in an XF. It was too wafty for my stomach.

I think that is what it is for me - give me something hard and I'm fine

[RobM77]

motco said:

Driving my son's Z4M on track is okay in general, but as a passenger I cannot survive more than a lap. It's the extreme 'G' forces that do it and the claustrophobic cabin. As a passenger in my Westfield, though, I am much better. It is fundamentally a conflict of sensory inputs: in a cabin on a ship the surroundings seem stable by eye, but the balance organs say they're not. Result? Puke! On deck where the vessel's movements are sensed by eye and inner ear equally, all is well except in extremis. I have yet to discover a guaranteed remedy. Stugeron is the best pill, I find, but pressure bands seem to help for my daughter. One thing's certain; it is NOT psychological!

Regarding track driving, I think this is the confines of the cabin and isolation from the elements rather than the g forces. I'm fine as a passenger in a Radical, 2-Eleven or similar, and driving single seaters with higher g forces, but I sometimes struggle as a passenger on track in saloon cars, despite them ppulling about 0.7-1.0g at most.

[y2blade]

I used to get it badly as a child, literally spewing after anything more than about 10-15mins of constant movement ...However I was always 100% fine on the back of motorbikes.


In my case the Car sickness stopped when I hit my teenage years

Edited by y2blade on Tuesday 3rd February 12:32

[mikeyr]

thatdude said:

My wife gets "car sick" / motion sick... ... ... She gets ill with first-person perspective computer games too

Oddly enough the same applies to my brother-in-law. And he worked as a oil tanker driver. Weird!

[iva cosworth]

I used to get car sick and sea sick but was cured by a "placebo".

Had an injection for something or other and was told later it was my cure for the sickness.

[Super Slo Mo]

motco said:

I suspect everybody gets this to a lesser or greater degree.

I'm not so sure. I've never had motion sickness at all, despite being on some fairly violent/dramatically moving vehicles. Two fairly dramatic experiences spring to mind, one was back in 2007, I had to spend 6-8 hours each day for 3 weeks (no days off) on the horizon in a 20 foot rib. The journey out was fast, rough and very uncomfortable, and once on the horizon we just spend hours bobbing around, but the swell was sufficient for the boat to rock through 30-40 degrees in each direction quite quickly.
The other was a plane trip back from KL in 2008. We hit turbulence for over an hour, that was bad enough that I couldn't put my drink down nor drink from the cup, I just had to hold it in mid air while we all bounced around.

I've never, ever had even a hint of nausea or sickness. I consider myself lucky of course, I feel sorry for you guys that suffer from it.

[wazztie16]

I'm 24, used to get it quite badly when I was younger. Nowadays I'm usually the driver, but do still feel a little sick when I'm passenger and I'm texting/reading something at work in the van etc.

[furtive]

I used to get it as a kid. It was caused not by the motion, but by the awful chemical "apple" scented car air freshener my parents had dangling from the air vent. As soon as they got rid of that, I stopped throwing up in the car.

I still feel sick if I passenger on a trackday though