Here's why you should never press this button in your car during winter

Winter this year has come knocking on our door with everything from cold winds to heavy snowfall. That's why you should always scrape your car windows clear and remove any snow before driving off. If you own a car with a heated windscreen, you've gotten lucky. Fortunately, the heated rear window is standard.

With the help of ventilation, the windscreen can be prevented from fogging up while driving. But it needs to be operated correctly, otherwise, you will achieve the exact opposite and suddenly find yourself 'flying blind'. And that's exactly why you should definitely keep your hands off the button at this time of year.

Attention! Please do not press this button!

This is the ventilation switch or regulator with the arrow shaped like a 'U'. This is the control for the recirculation function. And this is precisely why it can become a problem in winter. Normally, the fan lets air into the vehicle from outside. The recirculation function, on the other hand, only allows the air already inside the car to circulate.

This can be useful, for example, when driving through long tunnels. In this way, you do not bring exhaust-polluted air into the vehicle. The air recirculation button has another benefit when using the air conditioning, reports Stuttgarter-nachrichten.de. Since hot air is not constantly coming into the car, the air conditioner consumes less energy.

Humidity stays in the car

In winter, however, the air recirculation function has a decisive disadvantage. It causes moisture to remain inside the car and the windows to mist up. With such impaired visibility, the risk of an accident increases considerably, warns Heute.at. Air exchange is of crucial importance in winter.

Recirculated air has its pitfalls

By the way, even on long tunnel journeys with the air conditioning on, you should switch off the recirculated air every now and then. Otherwise, no fresh, oxygen-enriched air gets into the vehicle interior. This leads to fatigue as well as poor concentration, in the worst case even to the dreaded microsleep!

This article was translated from Gentside DE.

Sources used:

-Heute.at: Diesen Knopf solltest du im Winter im Auto nicht drücken

-Stuttgarter-nachrichten.de: Umluft im Auto richtig nutzen