When washing a car, most of the time it is mainly to wipe the appearance. In addition, after spending a lot of time cleaning the appearance of the vehicle, in many cases, the interior does not get much attention. However, a university is a direct demonstration that indoor cleaning management is as important as a car body.
Jonathan Cox, a professor of microbiology at Aston University in the UK and a team of researchers, investigated how many pathogens were exposed to five cars over 2 to 17 years. The cars are the 2-year-old Peugeot 308, the 5-year-old Volkswagen Golf, the 9-year-old Honda, the 13-year-old Ford Focus and the 17-year-old Peugeot 307 SW.
Samples were collected from six positions, including the driver's seat, rear seat, shift lever, dashboard, steering wheel, and trunk, and incubated at 37 degrees Celsius for 24 hours to confirm the results.
In addition, for comparison, the testers also took samples from the restroom, a 24-hour public toilet, and the samples were taken in two places that were not easily cleaned.
The most polluted part of the unit area is the trunk. A total of 1425 bacteria were detected. The reason is that there are often many things in the trunk, especially fruits and vegetables, and even some roots or leaves are easy to deteriorate in the trunk. Animals are also often found in the trunk, in which case some fecal debris falls into it, so the trunk is the dirtiest.
In the driver's seat, 649 bacteria per unit area were detected. Because many people like to eat while driving, in the process, food scraps will spill on the seat, causing bacteria to grow.
In addition, 407 bacteria were detected at the place of the shift lever. Because I didn't wash my hands in time during meals or outdoor activities, I touched the gear lever. The experimenters found that the gear lever alone had more bacteria than toilet water.
In addition, 323 bacteria were detected in the rear seats, and the dashboard (317 bacteria) and steering wheel (317 bacteria) were highly likely to be splashed when people were talking or sneezing.
The number of bacteria detected per unit area of public toilets is about 500. It has been proven that the pollution level in the car meets the minimum standards of public toilets, and the pollution level of the trunk is much more than that. The reason the steering wheel is surprisingly clean is that frequent hand disinfection due to the pandemic has had a positive impact.
Of course, it also confirms that the older the vehicle, the greater the number of bacteria. That's because the longer the vehicle is used, the more likely it is that bacteria will enter from a more diverse environment.
The types of bacteria found are also diverse. E. coli detected in the stool is detected, and it can cause food poisoning in humans. In addition, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Staphylococcus and Erythrocesces were identified.
Of course, Cox's team added that there was no need to be overly sensitive to these findings. Many bacteria are indeed found, but it does not cause serious problems for the human body. Even though we drive every day, we don't get sick. However, it warns against eating in the car, and it is even more important not to pick up and eat things that fall into the car.
In addition, he stressed that the inside of the car needs to be cleaned as much as outside the car, and it is necessary to develop the habit of thoroughly wiping down areas that are prone to accumulation of bacteria.