Self-reported upper body discomfort due to driving: effect of driving experience, gender and automobile age

· discomfort · driving · automobile · experience · gender · Borg Summary This study investigated the human upper body discomfort caused by automobile driving. Both global and local discomfort estimates were achieved by means of a selfadministered questionnaire. The geographic area surveyed was the city of Turin, Italy, and data from a total of 269 drivers was analysed. The back region was reported to suffer the greatest discomfort, followed in order of decreasing discomfort by the neck, shoulder, arm, hand-wrist, forearm, head, chest and mandible. Female drivers provided higher discomfort responses than male drivers. Subdividing the data according to driving experience lead to large and statistically significant differences in both global and local discomfort.

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