Twenty-eight years of delivery rounds, windows shut, and a face telling two different stories. In 2012, the New England Journal of Medicine published the photograph of a 69-year-old American truck driver whose one half of the face looked about two decades older than the other. The diagnosis: chronic exposure to UVA rays, which pass through the car door glass without the driver ever noticing.
Key takeaways
- An American truck driver presents a face aged by about twenty years on one side only — but why this side in particular?
- Car windows block sunburn rays but let through 60 to 70% of the rays that truly age the skin
- In France, regulations restrict how much protection side windows can offer — a silent flaw exposing regular drivers
A Truck, 28 Years Old, Two Faces on One Head
The man’s name is William McElligott. For nearly three decades, he drove a delivery truck, the driver’s side of his face pressed against the side window, six to eight stops a day, from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. He presented a twenty-five-year history of thickening and gradual, asymptomatic wrinkling of the skin on the left side of his face, corresponding to Favre-Racouchot syndrome of photo-damaged skin, known as dermatoheliosis. Doctors observed precise signs: hyperkeratosis with accentuated wrinkling, multiple open comedones, and zones of nodular elastosis.
The contrast between the two halves of his face was enough to turn a simple clinical image into a viral phenomenon. The photo appeared one day in Le Monde in Paris and the next day in the Herald Sun of Melbourne, picked up on news sites and Facebook pages around the world. A team of dermatologists from Northwestern University, where the two physicians who authored the case worked, even took charge of the patient. A team of dermatologists and laser-surgery specialists attempted to restore his facial features as much as possible. Proof that photoaging, unlike a sunburn, is never truly definitive: it can be treated, but rarely erased completely.
Why a Closed Window Doesn’t Protect as Much as You Might Imagine
The confusion comes from a widespread misunderstanding of what glass actually blocks. UVB, responsible for sunburns, are effectively blocked by any window. But UVA, the rays that age the skin deeply, pass with little hindrance. Ultraviolet A rays transmit through window glass, penetrating the epidermis and the upper dermis. The concrete health result: chronic UVA exposure can lead to thickening of the skin’s outer layers—the epidermis and the stratum corneum—and destruction of elastic fibers.
Everything depends on the type of glass. The windshield, made of laminated glass with an interleaving plastic film, effectively filters the radiation: according to a 2016 study by Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, it blocks an average of 96% of UVA, making it far more effective than the front side windows, driver and passenger, which block only about 71%, a rather poor result. The side window, by contrast, is ordinary tempered glass, without a safety film. Tempered glass, without a protective film, blocks UVB but lets through up to 60–70% of UVA, the long-wavelength rays that penetrate deepest into the dermis, responsible for premature skin aging, pigment spots, and a major role in melanoma risk.
Another common trap: believing tinted windows offer extra protection against this radiation. They do not. Tinted windows do not protect more against UVA; they are not sunglasses. And exposure is not limited to long summer trips: UVA rays are present all year round, at nearly constant intensity, in all weathers, even in winter, even on overcast days, and if you drive regularly, you accumulate a substantial dose of radiation without realizing it.
And in France, which side of the face is more exposed?
The laterality of the phenomenon depends on a simple detail: the position of the steering wheel. In countries where driving is on the right, like France or the United States, the driver’s seat is on the left of the vehicle, so it is the left cheek that remains pressed against the glass for hours, just like the NEJM chauffeur. In countries with left-hand driving (United Kingdom, Japan, Australia), the logic reverses and it is the right side of the face that bears the brunt. A detail that is far from trivial for delivery drivers, ride-hailing drivers, or salespeople who spend their days on the road: the imbalance builds up years before wrinkles become visible.
The French regulation doesn’t help much to fix the issue. The law requires a minimum light transmission of 70% on the front side windows, which limits the choice of legally usable anti-UV films. A constraint designed for road safety (seeing the driver’s face remains mandatory), but which effectively leaves motorists’ skin without a real barrier against this invisible radiation.
Protect Yourself Without Waiting 28 Years of Driving
The good news is that the protective gesture is not dramatic. A sunscreen applied to the face before getting behind the wheel, even for a twenty-minute home-to-work trip, substantially reduces cumulative exposure. UV-blocking films approved for side windows also exist: some reject up to 99% of UVA and UVB, provided one stays within the legal light transmission limits. One figure to keep in mind: this American driver never had a sunburn behind the wheel, never reddened, never felt anything. It is precisely this that makes UVA so sly — they work in silence, with the window closed, year after year, until the day the mirror shows two ages on one face.
Sources: comme-avant.bio | psychomedia.qc.ca
