Avoiding Public Transit Cooties
Entrepreneurs and transit agencies are trying to help riders cope with their fears of germs on trains and buses.
"This year, the TranStrap was launched in the U.S. It's a personal hand loop that you hook on the subway overhead bar, thus avoiding any unwanted contact. 'I found out that many people who use public transit do so under deep distress,' writes inventor Stan Dolberg on his website, transtrap.com. 'They worry about getting sick from sharing bars and poles.'
Then came the 'City Mitt,' a performance microfibre glove embedded with silver ions, which are naturally antimicrobial, says Emily Beck, the developer from Wilmington, Del., who also works in New York. When she moved to Manhattan and took the subway for the first time, she found it 'extremely dirty, and noticed that so many others felt the same way — balancing themselves on one finger on the chrome poles,' Beck says in an interview."
Additionally, the Toronto Transit Commission is planning to order the first subway cars with "an antimicrobial covering on all surfaces that are meant to be held, such as vertical and horizontal bars and metal handles."
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Crazed office workers of
Crazed office workers of Middle America/Canada, have you ever heard of washing your hands!? Use common sense, wash your hands before you put something in your mouths, don't lick the poles, and if you see a suspicious stain on a pole DON'T TOUCH IT!!!! This anti-bacterial/microbial stuff isn't any better than using soap and water, and I would guess it could lead you to believe you are being clean when you're not. All this does is create super-resistant strains of bacteria that one day will become a REAL problem.