Local News in Brief : Irvine : Car Device Inventor Donates to UCI Study

The inventor of CARCOOL auto shades--those cardboard “sunglasses” placed inside windshields to keep car interiors cool--has donated $5,000 to UC Irvine’s Institute of Transportation Studies to promote research on highway driving stress.

Abraham Levy of Westlake Village contributed the funds through his Drivetime Foundation, according to Wilfred W. Recker, a UCI professor of civil engineering.

The grant will underwrite an ongoing research project being conducted by Raymond W. Novaco and Daniel Stokols, professors in the social ecology program at UCI.

“Our research concerns the stressful consequences of automobile commuting and how alternative modes of travel may reduce negative effects on employee health and performance,” Novaco and Stokols said.

The professors said that in previous studies with California companies “we found that the distance and duration of the commute between home and work had negative effects on blood pressure, mood, tolerance for frustration and illness factors. Distance and time are stress-inducing because they impede or constrain movement and goals.”