[diyguy]

I get sick in the third row of our Qualis. My wife gets sick in the front passenger seat if she had to bend to get anything out of a bag. My kids feel nausea in the swift and third row qualis sometimes.
Recently was driving fast in the mountains in Kuala Lumpur in a SUV and a colleague of mine from the middle row got off to puke.

[bhandary]

The "weird feeling" is known as Motion Sickness and affects men, women and children equally and passed down the generations through the genes. Although there are remedies for temporary relief, there is no permanent cure.

Here are some abstracts from Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness)

Motion sickness can be divided into three categories:

1. Motion sickness caused by motion that is felt but not seen
2. Motion sickness caused by motion that is seen but not felt
3. Motion sickness caused when both systems detect motion but they do not correspond.

Examples for Motion sickness caused by motion that is felt but not seen
- Car/bus sickness, Air sickness, Sea sickness, Centrifuges, Dizziness due to spinning

Examples for Motion sickness caused by motion that is seen but not felt
- Films, Virtual Reality and Space sickness

Example of Motion sickness caused when both systems detect motion but they do not correspond
- Sometimes when riding a vehicle for a long time on a badly maintained road at a very slow (10–20 km/h) speed the two senses fail to correspond. Due to the poor road quality the vehicle will jerk too much giving a sense of severe motion to the inner ear, but due to the slow speed the eye doesn't sense a proportional amount of motion

TREATMENT:
Devices:
- A head-worn, computer device with a transparent display can be used to mitigate the effects of motion sickness if visual indicators of the wearer’s head position are shown. Such a device functions by providing the wearer with digital reference lines in their field of vision that indicate the horizon’s position relative to the user’s head. This is accomplished by combining readings from accelerometers and gyroscopes mounted in the device. This technology has been implemented in both standalone devices and Google Glass

Activity:
- One common suggestion is to simply look out of the window of the moving vehicle and to gaze towards the horizon in the direction of travel. This helps to re-orient the inner sense of balance by providing a visual re-affirmation of motion
In the night, or in a ship without windows, it is helpful to simply close one's eyes, or if possible, take a nap. This resolves the input conflict between the eyes and the inner ear. Napping also helps prevent psychogenic effects (i.e. the effect of sickness being magnified by thinking about it)
A simple method for relieving common and mild car sickness is chewing. Chewing gum has an uncanny effectiveness for reducing car sickness in those affected. Chewing gum, however, is not the only thing one may chew to relieve mild effects of car sickness, snacking on sweets or just chewing in general seems to reduce adverse effects of the conflict between vision and balance
Fresh, cool air can also relieve motion sickness slightly, although it is likely this is related to avoiding foul odors which can worsen nausea
While playing computer games, and mainly in first-person shooter games, some cases of simulation sickness can be resolved by changing the field of view in the game. Some games have a default setting which places a player's vision a small distance ahead of the actual object controlled, which will most likely trigger simulation sickness

Medications:
- Over the counter drugs from your friendly neighborhood medical shop or in sever cases your family physician will recommend medications

Electronic:
- As astronauts frequently have motion sickness, NASA has done extensive research on the causes and treatments for motion sickness. One very promising looking treatment is for the person suffering from motion sickness to wear LCD shutter glasses that create a stroboscopic vision of 4 Hz with a dwell of 10 milliseconds

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by bhandary

Electronic:
- As astronauts frequently have motion sickness, NASA has done extensive research on the causes and treatments for motion sickness. One very promising looking treatment is for the person suffering from motion sickness to wear LCD shutter glasses that create a stroboscopic vision of 4 Hz with a dwell of 10 milliseconds

WOW, just the kind of thing to spend my day researching on!

By the way my contribution to the thread.
I get motion sickness with anything that moves.
Surprisingly I have not felt the same in boats in the sea!!!
So having a clear access to the "horizon" really makes a huge difference.

Sitting in the back seat of a "modern" car with narrow slits mislabelled as "windows", and stout squat broad front sporty seats with nondetachable headrests absolutely gets me puking in no time.

Now speaking about windows, what I have observed is that the glass area BELOW the neutral line of sight is more important than the glass area above. What this means is that seats and windows should be so designed as to place your eyes above the middle of the glass pane.

Unfortunately, the more "modern" a design becomes, the narrower the windows becomes, and more sunk the seats become.

[centaur]

Well I dont know if this can be termed car sick, but if I sit on any of the seats apart from the driver's seat (in short if I am not driving), I end up coming home more tired than on longer journeys in the drivers seat. Adding to it, I start feeling sleepy as well. So generally while on long trips, even if the driver is there along, I take the wheel as soon as I get in the vehicle. This is only in cars BTW

No issues in any other mode of transport whatsoever

[The Rationalist]

I get motion sickness if I take the backseat in most cars and the most sick I got was in an Audi A4! I have never got such nausea while in any car. I rarely sit in the backseat, and if in need, usually take up the front passenger seat. Maybe if we are used to driving very much, motion sickness is expected when we become passengers! Avomin helps as an over the counter medication.

[King_pin09]

I do get sick quite a few times on the backseat; especially under the following circumstances,

1. If I try to read anything such as news paper, magazine or even a message on the mobile phone when the car is moving.
2. If the road is too crowded and the driver applies brakes repeatedly.
3. If the road is full of twists and turns and the car is moving at a fairly high pace.

I tend to develop sickness more often in expensive cars such as A4 / Civic etc., than in people movers like santro, WagonR etc.

The case is bit different with my wife though, she usually gets sick when we are travelling to my native place, but she never gets it when travelling to her native.

[car FANATICUS]

I like road trips, so much so that I have been avoiding any travel plans that do not involve driving down to the destination. I relocated to Bangalore in 2012, and since then have been visiting all the nice drivable places around Bangalore.

While I enjoy my family road trip, my elder daughter who is 11, suffers a lot. She gets travel sick quickly, and it takes away the fun from trip very often. My other kid who is 4, gets bored equally fast and before I am even half way through my trip, I am dealing with two not very supportive fellow travelers.

I have been trying few things to overcome this situation, but it’s been a hit or miss. I consulted a doctor, who advised Phenergan, 30 minutes before travel, I tried this couple of times and it worked too. Somehow it did not feel right to drug my children before the travel, however harmless the doctor claimed it to be. I stopped doing it after a couple of successful attempts.

On my internet reads, found that sickness arises due the mismatch of instructions to brain from Eye and Ear, so we made sure that there was no screen time while travelling, and my daughter was asked to look outside as much as possible. My kids are no saints, obedience is one virtue they exercise at their will and hence this method worked or did not without any patterns.

My last drive in October was to Bekal from Bangalore. While going to Bekal, daughter got travel sick again and we had to stop multiple times, our initial estimated time of arrival to hotel went hay wire, not to mention that it was bad witnessing my daughter feel so awful while I was trying to enjoy the drive.

While coming back from Bekal, we tried something new. I asked my daughter to sit in front, she loved the drive, enjoyed music and we returned back in just one stop for lunch. All this happened when we started the trip with a heavy breakfast of Taj Bekal, kids were pampered with all the dishes that make ideal recipe for being travel sick. My concern is that although this method worked, it’s not safe and advisable, and I am not very gung ho about repeating this adventure.
From the forum of car and travel enthusiasts, I want to find out what is your way of dealing with such situation?

[JoshMachine]

Originally Posted by alpha1

WOW, just the kind of thing to spend my day researching on!

with you there.
This kind of research is quite deep

Motion sickness, for passengers, is definitely more probable as compared to a driver.
Even I feel drowsy and/or uncomfortable if I am seated anywhere but in the driver's seat.
As has been mentioned zillion times on this thread, this is simply because, we as a driver, are able to better anticipate or predict that next car swaying movement in general. And that's when our eyes are able to understand and follow the direction of the intended travel. Which is not the case when we are seated in the passenger seat, thus causing varying amount of confusion in our inner ear (don't recall the NASA equivalent term, but something related to the vestibular systems).

[am1m]

Originally Posted by bhandary

One common suggestion is to simply look out of the window of the moving vehicle and to gaze towards the horizon in the direction of travel. This helps to re-orient the inner sense of balance by providing a visual re-affirmation of motion

Remember reading this and it works. One theory to explain motion sickness was that if the inner ear senses motion and the visual input from the eyes do not confirm it, the brain assumes that you've ingested something poisonous and triggers vomiting! Sounds like an interesting theory. But looking out the window, 'visually confirming motion', does work.

As a car passenger I'm ok during short city trips, but I do get motion sickness on highway drives, especially hilly drives. No way I can read in a car at any speed, not even messages on the phone, instant motion sickness! Also severe motion sickness on fast moving boats. Funnily enough, I have absolutely no issues on trains, even if I'm not near the window.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by car FANATICUS

From the forum of car and travel enthusiasts, I want to find out what is your way of dealing with such situation?

This is what we do since the symptoms are only on hill/ghat roads:
1.Avoid hill driving (ascent/descent) soon after a meal
2.Roll down the windows during hill drives, get some fresh air inside the cabin
3.Carry disposable sickness bags, a mug and water in the car (all easily accessible)

A friend mentioned recently that there are wrist bands available now and he got one such and seems to work for his family. If I remember correctly it is called Sea-band.

*I don't have any commercial interest/association with the product/brand/company

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by NPV

A friend mentioned recently that there are wrist bands available now and he got one such and seems to work for his family. If I remember correctly it is called Sea-band.

*I don't have any commercial interest/association with the product/brand/company

This wrist band thingy has been working extremely well for my sister in law. She had a lot of trouble with motion sickness even with tablets like avomin. Since she got the band, absolutely no issues. No idea how it works-although I believe it is something to do with pressure on the wrist. Forgot the exact brand though.

[pnredkar]

Originally Posted by car FANATICUS

From the forum of car and travel enthusiasts, I want to find out what is your way of dealing with such situation?

I frequently faced similar situations few years ago. Both, my wife and kid face motion-sickness. Did some research then and found out that vertical movements in cars that happen once every few seconds (0.2Hz to 0.4Hz range) is most often the culprit for car sickness. My car then was an Opel Corsa which had a very soft and pliant ride, but also had lots of vertical bobbing at highway speeds. (Which car do you drive?)

Luckily, I was in the process of changing my car then. I replaced the Corsa with a Vento that has a very flat highway ride and controlled body roll over curves. The incidences of car-sickness in my car has reduced to almost nil over the last six years. I don't remember exactly, maybe once or twice; but it has stopped being an issue when we are in our car.

Having said that, we have been visiting the northern hill-stations regularly past few years. There we rent cars (not self-drive), typically Innova, Indigo, Dzire or even Ecosport once. And the incidences of car-sickness are back, confirming for me that the car dynamics play a very big role in motion-sickness.

Few things that we do when in rented car:
- No heavy meal before travel
- Use shades to avoid direct sun
- No screen usage during travel
- Mint/candies also help
- Front seats help as there is less pronounced bobbing there.

Hope this helps.

- Prasad

[sidharth_j]

I'm usually the driver in any long journey, and as a driver you rarely encounter this problem.
However, I get severely motion sick if I was to be in the back seat as a passenger or travelling long distance in intercity buses.

My solution is a medicine called Perinorm.
Perinorm is a tablet that is used to prevent nausea and vomiting.
So, 10 minutes before a journey, i pop one of these pills and I am good to go.

I havent tried any other method though considering how well Perinorm has worked for me.

[SJM1214]

I am fortunate enough to say that nothing happens to me in any kind of vehicle. The only uncomfortable seat for me in any vehicle is the windowless middle seat. When I am stuck in the middle seat of a vehicle, I keep giving advice to the driver. My friends think that this annoying habit is one kind of car sickness.

[TheHelix0202]

I get car sick under the following conditions-

~A moderately strong air freshner. Hate those ambi-pur types. Even removed the Godrej Air twist gel after it not “working” right (half used- given to us by someone) and using a Dr.Charcoal bag nowadays (removed it temporarily now along with the rest of the stuff inside the vehicle for giving it to service).

~Flowers inside the car. Worst stuff ever, especially when dried.

~Backseat of the Rapid. Contrary to claims on there being decent legroom for even six footers, I find this space extremely claustrophobic with the high central tunnel, low roof and sunken-in seats.

Edit- When we were in Bangalore the car was unused most of the time, with hardly any weekend runs even. Used to be cooped up in the underground basement. That combined with some weird polish the TAFE guys were using tended to cause a semi-unpleasant smell every time I got inside. It has been reduced to just dust thankfully, due to our daily ~20 km highway runs nowadays, since April of this year. Yet to vacuum the interiors and polish it .