A recent study by car rental company Intelligent Car Leasing showed that 22% of the 1,460 British drivers surveyed only cleaned the inside and outside of their car every six months, while 6% admitted that since purchasing their car, they had never cleaned it.
In addition, research carried out by ATS Euromaster, in association with Professor John Ward from the Department of Biochemical Engineering at University College London, showed that your car could be contaminated with 16 times more germs than your toilet seat. After examining 11 cars, Professor Ward and his team found up to 800 different bacteria in the interiors.
Cross-contamination
Think about the parts of your car you touch as you get in and prepare to set off on your journey – door handles, steering wheel, gear stick, handbrake, radio, and mirror, to name a few. It is therefore easy to see how germs you may have on your hands can be spread around your car. This doesn’t take into consideration the parts that any passengers will also touch, or the mess children and pets can make.
Every journey you take gives you a new opportunity to spread germs. You are in a confined space, so when you sneeze or cough the germs have nowhere to go, meaning they will land on a part of your car. You are then likely to pick up the germs and circulate them.
Cleaning
In the UK, the average adult will spend 293 hours a year in their car – shouldn’t you, therefore, be treating your car as you would your own home? After all, would you go six months without giving your house a clean?
Ideally, we should be cleaning the inside of our cars between once a week and once a month. This can be made extremely simple by regularly spraying touch points with NatraSan, which kills 99.9999% of germs in seconds.
The top 10 areas of your car that you should be paying particular attention to are:
- Cup holders
- Steering wheel
- External door handles
- Internal door handles
- Seat belts
- Window controls
- Multimedia screen
- Rear view mirror
- Handbrake
- Air vents
NatraSan comes in a variety of sizes, including a 100ml Travel Buddy and 50ml Pocket Buddy, which are ideal for keeping in your car for regular spraying. NatraSan can be purchased from our online shop, or by calling 0800 707 6883 to place a telephone order.
