Driving While Exhausted

09.05.2008

Ever woke up relieved that your foot was still on the brake and the light was still red? Most of us have. Most Americans do not get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep each night.

Truck drivers account for a small percentage of sleep-related accidents (passenger cars are by far the biggest offenders). That would be little comfort though, if you should wake up behind the wheel of a large vehicle that you are no longer actually controlling.

"...Lack of sleep impairs driving

as much as alcohol."

At high levels of exhaustion, it is common to fall asleep without knowing it. Numerous sleep studies report this: subject recalls feeling sleepy, and then woke up with no memory of actually falling asleep. The brain is quite capable of shutting itself down without asking permission.

The Circadian rhythm, the body’s natural sleep wake cycle, has been widely shown to be a heavy influence on sleepiness. Nighttime drivers, or drivers with variable shifts are at greater risk than daytime drivers. An exhausted driver does not have to be outright snoring on the steering wheel, though, to become a menace.

A recent study in New Zealand indicates that lack of sleep impairs driving as much as alcohol. The study found that subjects who had not slept in 17 or more hours score measurably poorly on alertness and reaction simulations. Subjects who had been awake 23 hours or longer scored as poorly as subjects who were legally intoxicated.

If you catch yourself shaking yourself awake on the highway, there are a few things that work, at least in the short term. While rolling down the window has not been shown to statistically improve wakefulness, cranking up the radio has been shown to keep drivers more alert. Caffeine is safe and effective in rational doses as well. Getting out of the cab to stretch seems to work, for a while, but vigorous exercise has not been shown to add substantially to wakefulness once the heart rate slows again. Studies vary on the validity of napping, but the majority of surveys suggest that the majority of U.S. drivers rarely take them anyway.

When exhaustion sets in there is ultimately only one solution that ensures the safety of everyone on the road: Find some time and a safe place for catching some much needed sleep.



By: Tony Padegimas