Ford Builds Hangover Suit to Demonstrate You Can't Drive the Morning After

Ideally, the two should never overlap, but as a quick glance over the road accidents shows, they definitely do. Drunk driving is a very serious problem and one that claims the lives of a lot of people, some of them completely innocent.

Despite the high incidence of alcohol-related accidents, ask every driver in the world if they are supposed to drive after consuming alcohol, and all of them will give you the right answer. This is one of the things we learn from a young age, way before we're allowed to perform any of the two actions.

However, we also know that after we sleep it over, we're good to go. We might have a hangover, but at least there isn't any alcohol left in our blood, so we won't have any problem with the law. Which is great because problems are the only thing you need with this throbbing headache that's nagging you.

Well, research has shown that hangover can be almost as dangerous as inebriation when it comes to controlling a vehicle in traffic. However, proving this in a remotely scientific way is a bit more difficult since getting people drunk and waiting until the next day isn't exactly the most orthodox approach.

That's how Ford came up with the "hangover suit." The morning after an alcohol bender brings a series of symptoms with it, some of which proved to be very difficult to recreate. Besides the well-known headache, there's also hypersensitivity to light and sounds, a sense of dizziness, exhaustion, but the one the researchers at the Meyer-Hentschel Institute in Germany found the most difficult to recreate was the dry mouth.

“We did a lot of research – including analyzing our own abilities after an evening of social drinking,” said Gundolf Meyer-Hentschel, CEO of the Meyer-Hentschel Institute. “For the ‘Hangover Suit’ we have introduced the headphones that replicate the particular increased sensitivity to sound as well as the typical acoustic experiences of a migraine. In addition, a weighted headset, together with the goggles, simulates dizziness and a blinding headache.”

The hangover suit will be used by the carmaker in its Ford Driving Skills for Life program, a project that offers training to young people on how they can become safer drivers. It will join the already existing "drunk driving suit" and "drug driving suit."