Physician and researcher Dr. Baran Erdik just dropped a study that might make you think twice about driving with even a hint of brain fog. His research, published in “PLOS Global Public Health,” suggests that people sick with Covid-19 may be just as impaired behind the wheel as someone legally drunk.

Erdik dug into crash data across seven U.S. states, comparing rates during and after peak Covid surges.

What he found was unsettling: car crash rates jumped by 25% in areas with higher Covid infections

That link held even when adjusting for variables like population size, driving volumes, and seasonal changes. In other words, more Covid in a community? More car accidents.

And no, this isn’t just about people speeding on empty roads during lockdown. Erdik argues that theory alone doesn’t explain the full picture. Especially when you see a rise in total crash volume, not just severity. Even countries with wildly different pandemic responses saw similar patterns, Streetsblog USA shared.

What makes this study especially eyebrow-raising is Erdik’s suggestion that the virus could actually affect the brain in ways that make driving more dangerous. He points to research indicating that Covid can breach the blood-brain barrier. 

That potentially leads to cognitive impairments like memory issues, slowed reaction times, and that now-familiar “brain fog.” All of which sound suspiciously like things you don’t want while merging at 70 mph.

He even goes so far as to compare the impairment to driving at the legal blood alcohol limit — a level plenty of experts already argue is too high

Now, Erdik admits the study isn’t airtight. He couldn’t track every unreported crash or know for certain whether individual drivers had recently been infected. But the trends were clear enough for him to raise the alarm.

His takeaway? If Covid can mess with your brain, it can mess with your driving. That calls for serious changes — not just better ventilation and public health policies, but a hard look at our car-first culture. At the very least, he hopes sick drivers will slow down, stay alert, or, better yet, stay home.

Because as Erdik puts it, you’re driving a two-ton metal missile — and the person in the bike lane isn’t.