Driving Tired!

[KenB]

Re: Driving Tired!

Was that a "nap" or "app"?

Both, actually.

[copyman]

Re: Driving Tired!

I try not to eat before or while driving on long trips. I get tired about 20 mins after eating. Something to do with glucose spikes, etc.

Since I'm self employed it is harder to pull over and take a nap. It was much easier to take a nap when working for a company

[mrwho]

Re: Driving Tired!

Fell asleep twice while driving. Got lucky both of the times. Scared shitless both of the times. Not worth it. Now when I feel like falling asleep, I stop and take a 15-20 minute nap.

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Driving Tired!

I've spoken to high school teachers in education who inform me that their students monitor www.copytechnet.com.

Fatal Fatigue comes with a real warning:
I'd like to share an anecdote that leaves a severe stern warning to those mucho people who believe they can soldier-on through their on going driving fatigue.You "WILL", with out a doubt, start to hallucinate if driving tired for extended long hours.

My first experience with fatal driver fatigue, came while I was in my prime peak physical sporting fitness. I can honestly say that I had no caffeine, drugs or alcohol or stimulants of any kind while driving the extended hours. My first an only tired hallucination I experienced while driving happened after being awake for a continuous 48 plus hours of work and continuous driving. Looking forward to a welcome vacation, I did two consecutive 12 hour work shifts then hopped in the vehicle and proceeded to drive toward the coast 1000km away.

The hallucination happened in early daylight during the second early morning of the remaining 1 hr of the 10 hour drive. The hallucination began when a power pole suddenly appeared random in the middle of the roadway. The imaginary power pole displayed perfectly conscious visual images, like it had been placed in the middle of the road. I felt fully coherent and fully awake, but the bazzar visual observation made for a stark reminder of, what was by then, 45 plus hours of continuous sleep deprivation and driving.

My first instinctive reaction to the random hallucination was to swerve around the imaginary pole,giving me only a matter of seconds to make a driver choice. Luckily my natural intuition over ruled my reactive instinct, an I saved the vehicle from a pending fatal incident. It may have been a very different situation if I had hallucinated another vehicle heading on my side of the road.

Driving tired for extended hours with out any sleep will cause major errors of judgement, no question in my mind. Worst case, your eyes will be fully open, your cognitive awareness will suddenly glitch off-on for a split second ,you feel fully awake, along with what I could only describe as a camera-motion-frame-visionary-effect. You are aware of the sudden abnormal vision conscious glitch in seconds of time, and you're fully awake.

In concluding, a person does not have to physically nod off or fall sleep to have a fatigue related driving incident. Fatal driver fatigue is very real and can happen to any fit healthy person, if you've been deprived of sleep long enough.

I've had some other driver fatigue related incidences both as a driver and as a passenger. I've had a similar experience of bouncing along sound asleep in the table drain off the side of the road. Do not try and push the tired driver issue beyond your own capabilities. Insist on taking over the driver seat if the current drive has become tired and distance in conversation.

Fatal Driving Fatigue Signs :
Your first physical yawn is the first sign of fatigue, your eyes will then feel heavy, your head will repeatedly nod forward,you will finally blank out. If you're lucky, you might wake in one piece with an ambulance officer holding your hand. Your first unconscious head nod forward while driving, is your first nod in agreement to the grim reaper.

...learning the fatigue signs could save a life.

For the young Tech's out there doing extended driving hours, learn from the older guy's, you will still be around in the following years to tell about it. DO NOT try soldiering on through your on going driver fatigue, many people have failed.


The above are very real experiences in the hope that it saves someone or their family unnecessary pain.

[theengel]

Re: Driving Tired!

Lately, when I pull over for a nap, I jolt myself awake, very suddenly, thinking I've fallen asleep at the wheel. Talk about being instantly scared awake.

[copyman]

Re: Driving Tired!

I have heard and find it to be true that if you take a nap don't make it longer than 20 mins. If any longer you will actually feel more tired than before you took the nap !

[theengel]

Re: Driving Tired!

I have heard and find it to be true that if you take a nap don't make it longer than 20 mins. If any longer you will actually feel more tired than before you took the nap !

That's always been the case for me. I used to set my phone to go off in 15. But any more, I understand that my wife or a customer will call me within 10 minutes, so I don't worry about it.

[copyman]

Re: Driving Tired!

HA-ha that is funny theengel.

[giddyupngo]

Re: Driving Tired!

Thanks all, great tips. Maybe I'll do a sleep study.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[blackcat4866]

Re: Driving Tired!

...You "WILL", with out a doubt, start to hallucinate if driving tired for extended long hours.

My first experience with fatal driver fatigue, came while I was in my prime peak physical sporting fitness. I can honestly say that I had no caffeine, drugs or alcohol or stimulants of any kind while driving the extended hours. My first an only tired hallucination I experienced while driving happened after being awake for a continuous 48 plus hours of work and continuous driving. Looking forward to a welcome vacation, I did two consecutive 12 hour work shifts then hopped in the vehicle and proceeded to drive toward the coast 1000km away.

The hallucination happened in early daylight during the second early morning of the remaining 1 hr of the 10 hour drive. The hallucination began when a power pole suddenly appeared random in the middle of the roadway. The imaginary power pole displayed perfectly conscious visual images, like it had been placed in the middle of the road. I felt fully coherent and fully awake, but the bizarre visual observation made for a stark reminder of, what was by then, 45 plus hours of continuous sleep deprivation and driving. ...

On a trip back from Chicago, with a total of 3 hours sleep over three days, I began to hallucinate quite vividly. It probably didn't help that there was a nice even fresh coat of white snow on the ground. In the last 100 miles I began to see family members, friends, giraffes, bison, camels, and various zoo animals, all standing in the road. It would have been more frightening if the images had been opaque rather than translucent like ghosts, or if it had really been likely for a giraffe to be standing in the middle of a snowy highway in Upper Michigan. My eyes were open, but I was at maybe 10% mental capacity.

Be smarter than me. Stop for a nap. =^..^=

[KenB]

Re: Driving Tired!

On a trip back from Chicago, with a total of 3 hours sleep over three days, I began to hallucinate quite vividly. It probably didn't help that there was a nice even fresh coat of white snow on the ground. In the last 100 miles I began to see family members, friends, giraffes, bison, camels, and various zoo animals, all standing in the road. It would have been more frightening if the images had been opaque rather than translucent like ghosts, or if it had really been likely for a giraffe to be standing in the middle of a snowy highway in Upper Michigan. My eyes were open, but I was at maybe 10% mental capacity.

Be smarter than me. Stop for a nap. =^..^=

Remember the movie, "Black Dog", with Patrick Swayze?

[fixthecopier]

Re: Driving Tired!

I didn't read everything posted, but I know that music tends to become background noise. Try listening to comedy or books. You tend to pay attention.

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Driving Tired!

I didn't read everything posted, but I know that music tends to become background noise. Try listening to comedy or books. You tend to pay attention.

Here in Oz we have large high way signage that instructs the driver to play trivia games while driving. The state transport dept. have a large trivia question sign followed by the answer sign further along the road.
They repeat the signage 3 or four times along the highway at various troubled highway black spots going down the entire east coast of Aust.

The last sign of every question set always says "Keep playing trivia it could save your life."

[Iowatech]

Re: Driving Tired!

{Warning long rant ahead...}

Why I believe normal healthy, rested people get tired from travel.

The EMF Effect :
Iron binds with oxygen help to carry oxygen around the body and brain.
While driving, and more so while flying, people suffer from jet lag.
With any travel the human body is racing through the magnetic field of the earth at speed. The iron in your body is micro-vibrating from racing through the earths magnetic field,and therefore not binding iron-oxygen to carry sufficent supplies of oxygen around the body.Obviously, a lack of sufficient oxygen will make any person tire very quickly. Is this non-binding iron-oxygen effect the real cause of jet-lag ?

I've noticed a similar jet lag effect from people working long hours, then drive long hours along side high power electrical lines. I believe the magnetic field of the high tension lines micro-vibrates their body iron-oxygen, while possibly further generating localised static/electricity build up in plastics/metals of the moving vehicle. The affect of that is, that those people driving begin to feel jet lagged. Those same jet lag tired people begin to fall asleep at the wheel, and some with fatal consequences. There have be numerous people involved in fatal single vehicle accidences here in our location in CQ.

The common factor I've noticed is that they are driving along the road next to HV electrical power lines.Add in additional factors like vehicle plastic/vinyles static electricity, EMF pollution from FM Radio, mobile phone towers forcing who knows what chemical changes through a persons body water while they drive.

Static HV and fatigue:
Other factors to concider include static electricity build up in all the plastics and vinyles of new vehicles. In my youth I had a relative that would purchase a new vehicle every 12-18 months. On short journies out of town my childhood cousins would always complain of feeling tired and become car sick with vomiting soon after. By chance the uncle explained the childrens car sickness problem to an associate. The associate instructed my uncle to remove the static electricity from the vehicle by placing a grounding static strap from the metal frame of the vehicle down to the ground. As the car travelled along, the static strap would randomly touch the ground and remove HV static charge off the car. My very sceptical Uncle purchased a static strap and placed it on the vehicle. To his surprise, and in his own words, the children never got tired or car sick ever again.

The above observations are just that. I have no information that correlates to any real findings.

If people are normal and don't suffer from any health issues, have normal sleeping patterns,then there is no reason for people to fall asleep at the wheel. One reason for getting abnormally tired, your blood iron levels might be low, or maybe the vehicle is brand new causing HV static build up in the vehicle. I don't rightly know.

Things I've done to help drive long hours (mainly at night):
I've place a proper commerical grade static strap on my vehicle, to remove HV static off the vehicle and passengers. Where possible reduced all external an internal cabin light glare. I've done this by reducing all the lights from the dash board down to almost off. Redirect reversing mirrors off kilter just a tad so that rear traffic headlights do not cause glare an eye strain. I've noticed if my head becomes warm (from the internal heater) that I soon become tired. If my head starts to warm, I wind the window down just a fraction, to keep the top of my head cool. I drink a cold drink like Coca Cola, with small amounts of caffine. I've also heard that chewing on ice cubes can do the same to keep the blood in your head cool, and help with fatigue while making the long haul.
Now I'm older so I offen take a break with a wee-stop,have a cup of coffee and something to eat.

In my younger years one of my worst cases of fatal fatigue came after I did a straight through 48 hour shift in two vehicles.I became so lost in fatigue that I stopped the vehicle at 1-2am in the morning, got out, and jogged up the road for 5 mins, and then return back to the vehicle to finish the remaining 3 of 10 hour drive.

I also drive at night with the dash lights low, but that is more to to reduce distraction to what may be on the road ahead.
Cooling the blood to your brain really does help when it is hot outside. The first time I went to Central America when I was probably in the Reserves the medicos passed out linen arm slings to a bunch of us that we soaked with water and wrapped around our necks. The evaporating water cooled the blood flow to the brain, which made it more comfortable there as it was the freaking dead of winter here then. I've done that when it gets into the upper '80s F or above (if my metric conversion table is accurate, that's roughly around 30 or 31 C) ever since. It's kind of cool looking too, because if I wrap it right it looks like I'm wearing an OD green cravat.
Comfort is not a good thing if you are driving while tired though, so consider my comment as entirely out of context please.

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Driving Tired!

[Snip]
Comfort is not a good thing if you are driving while tired though, so consider my comment as entirely out of context please.

Your are correct. If you wish to survive while driving extended long hours, you have to make part of your person uncomfortable. The more relax, the greater the chance of falling asleep at the wheel. You have to force yourself to be partially uncomfortable if you absolutely can't take a required short break from driving.

Well... if you've got a have-a-chat, or nagging wife, then your uncomfortable driving problems are solved....

Just kidding.... ( sort of, sorry dear )......