Extremely Long Winded Answer. Get a cup of coffee and a cigarette. (What my neighbour used to say to obscene telephone callers. "Just a minute, let me get a cup of coffee and a cigarette ...") Another useful warning that applies to 50% of my posts is that it is mostly urban legend. But worth checking out.
You forgot. "How long before we are there?" But then that is the chorus, not the main verse.
My dad drove the family car at 75 all the time. Our detail was backwatch for Holsteins. We never failed. I could detect Holsteins at one mile. At night he would behind a row of cars he would turn off the lights and pull out and pass 100 cars at a time, perhaps 2 miles of just about bumper to bumper. He would practically push one off the road to get back in. "He has to let us in," he would explain, "It's the law".
I found no matter how fast you drove anywhere you always averaged 50 miles per hour with stops, and hold ups of different kinds. Everyone does this, even truck drivers who drive 70 on the hiway. So I would drive 50 and not stop for anything for 24 hours at a time. When I was young. After stopping to pick up a fire hydrant one time, I discontinued the practice.
If you are producing monoxide you will not know it. It is impossible to distinguish from normal hiway drowsiness. After 5 years most vehicle have it. An open window, contrary to popular mythology will not get rid of it, unless you run a 1/4 horse 10 inch fan as well. Perhaps both no drafts and back windows open might do it. CO is the same weight as air, and the evolution of gas from a floor leak in the dead air zone, with the usual muffler seepage, is enormous. (8 cylinder Engines produce about 1400 cubic feet of gas per minute at 1800 degrees. ) The best defense is redo your entire exhaust train from manifold gasket to tailpipe every 3 years at least.
I used to test mine vehicles for CO and NO with a draeger tester.With a 150 HP diesel mine vehicle with scrubber you could put the draeger right up the exhaust pipe at 1/3 throttle, and it would collect about 100 PPM CO in one pump. (Peanuts, really.) If you stood 6 feet behind an idling Chev 8 cylinder from 1975, you could collect 1500 PPM at waist height. If you ran a 20 HP gas engine in the same space as you ran 3 haulage vehicles for a mine, for 15 minutes, everyone in that area would be dead. And the engine would have stopped for lack of combustible oxygen!
I estimate that 1/3 of all hiway deaths are cause by driver inattentativeness caused by CO poisoning. Head ons, off roads, even loss of control on slippery surfaces.(bad reflexes and sloppy reactions) This would explain why many accidents occur in older cars, more than 20 minutes from town and in the winter. Time enough for in vehicle CO buildup after idling and driving.
Call me a liar and buy a 50 dollar CO detector for your car. Don't let it freeze.
Worst place in town for CO. Your local repair garage. I would not work at one for one minute. I have tested them myself. But most of the CO is on the ceiling, despite its sameness of SG as the exhaust gas rises quickly. Don't let your CO detector go in a garage. The overload will poison the element and you will have to replace it.
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