The Dangers of Drowsy Driving

Last August, I wrote a post about my oldest son’s motorcycle accident called, “How Living in the Moment Can Save Your Life.” This story, unfortunately, is an example of how not living in the moment, not being fully present, could potentially cost you your life.

Several nights ago my oldest son called me:

“Hi, Mom.” That’s all he had to say for me to know that something was very wrong.

“Are you okay, hon?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” he replied, but something in the tone of his voice belied the words he spoke.

My heart dropped into my stomach, fear gripped me and my voice rose an octave as I asked, “What’s wrong?! What is it?”

“I totaled the car.” Oh my God! OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod! was all that ran through my mind as time seemed to stand still for a moment and I tried to catch my breath and my mind scrambled, despite the fear, to process the fact that at least he was okay enough to call. Still…the vision of my son lying in a hospital bed 1200 miles away, flashed through my head.

“Are you all right?! What happened?!”

“I was driving home from work on the freeway and I dozed off.” I heard him say as the “OhmyGodohmyGod” chant struck up in my head again. I pulled my attention back to what he was saying as the rest of the story unfolded.

He’d been driving home on the freeway, doing about 65mph, and he’d dozed off for mere seconds. You know how you blink longer and more slowly when you’re struggling to stay awake? That’s all it took. As his eyes popped open again all his drowsy brain could register was the bumper looming much too close in front of him and the brake lights glaring a warning of imminent danger.

He reacted instinctively, hitting the brakes and swerving into the right lane to avoid hitting the car in front of him. Unfortunately, being less than fully aware and alert, he over-corrected and the car began to spin. It spun several times across two lanes of traffic, coming to a stop when the back bumper slammed into a light pole on the side of the freeway.

The tow truck had to pull the car off the pole. Now, mind you…this is an ’87 Toyota Supra hatchback. Back in ’87 they were still making steel bumpers. That you can clearly see the imprint of the pole in the crushed steel bumper tells me the car hit with considerable force.

My son’s voice shook as he said, “Another quarter turn Mom, another split-second, and it would have been the driver’s door that hit the pole and I’d be dead.”

He’s right…he was very fortunate, all things considered. There was no better place than that steel bumper for his car to have made contact with that pole. And he’s very fortunate to have avoided hitting the car in front of him, that no other cars hit him as he spun across two lanes of the freeway at 3pm in the afternoon, and that there was no one else in the car. It could have ended very differently.

Scary Stats

According to DrowsyDriving.org & the National Sleep Foundation’s 2005 Sleep in America Poll:

“60% of adult drivers – about 168 million people – say they have driven a vehicle while feeling drowsy in the past year, and more than one-third, (37% or 103 million people), have actually fallen asleep at the wheel! In fact, of those who have nodded off, 13% say they have done so at least once a month. Four percent – approximately eleven million drivers – admit they have had an accident or near accident because they dozed off or were too tired to drive.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year. This results in an estimated 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses. These figures may be the tip of the iceberg, since currently it is difficult to attribute crashes to sleepiness.”

Risk Factors

Again, according to DrowsyDriving.org:

Specific At-Risk Groups

• Young people-especially males under age 26
  
• Shift workers and people with long
  work hours-working the night shift increases your risk by nearly 6
  times; rotating-shift workers and people working more than 60 hours a
  week need to be particularly careful
  
• Commercial drivers-especially long-haul drivers – at least 15% of all heavy truck crashes involve fatigue
  
• People with undiagnosed or
  untreated disorders-people with untreated obstructive sleep apnea have
  been shown to have up to a seven times increased risk of falling asleep
  at the wheel
  
• Business travelers-who spend many hours driving or may be jet lagged

Are You at Risk?

Before you drive, consider whether you are:

• Sleep-deprived or fatigued (6 hours of sleep or less triples your risk)
• Suffering from sleep loss (insomnia), poor quality sleep, or a sleep debt
• Driving long distances without proper rest breaks
• Driving through the night, mid-afternoon or when you would normally be asleep
• Taking sedating medications (antidepressants, cold tablets, antihistamines)
• Working more than 60 hours a week (increases your risk by 40%)
• Working more than one job and your main job involves shift work
• Drinking even small amounts of alcohol
• Driving alone or on a long, rural, dark or boring road

My son is 22 and for the last four years has worked from 5am – 2pm. This means he must get up between 3-3:30am five days a week. Being an active 22 yr. old he rarely goes to bed as early as he’d need to in order to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. He averages only 4-5 hours. As a result he is chronically sleep-deprived.

The scary part is that he didn’t “think” he was tired when he got in the car to drive home that day. Having functioned on so little sleep for so long, being sleep-deprived has become “normal” for him and so his awareness of it is no longer what it should be.

Too High a Price to Pay

My son fractured the L5 vertebrae in his lower back, and he’s been in a world of pain. It’s not clear yet if there is any other damage to his back. The ER docs discharged him that night, telling him to follow-up with his doctor. His family doc took one look at the x-rays, prescribed a stronger pain med, referred him to an orthopedic specialist and told him to plan on taking six weeks off work. He is, as I type, at his appointment with…I kid you not…Dr. Payne…theorthopedic specialist, and I can only hope for good news when he calls after the appointment.

My son can’t afford to take six weeks off work, and sadly, he needs a car to get to and from work and he had only liability insurance on the car and hadn’t yet paid off the personal loan he took out to buy it just 8 months ago. He has no idea how he’s going to replace the car or how he’ll manage if he does indeed have to take six weeks off work.

He’ll pay a steep price both physically and financially, for the accident that was, quite literally, a wake-up call. And yet, it could have been so much worse. The price could have been so much higher.

He’s thankful, as am I, that he’s alive and that, hopefully, the injury to his back will heal without long-term consequences. I will be forever grateful that he was not one of the 1,550 who die each year as a result of driving drowsy.

Raising Awareness

Talk to those you love. Educate yourself and your loved ones about the dangers of driving drowsy and what to do when you find yourself struggling to stay awake while driving. Visit DrowsyDriving.org for more information on the stats, risks, warning signs, countermeasures and prevention, especially if you have teen or young
adult drivers.

Spread the word, raise awareness of the dangers, and you just might save a life. Your own, or that of someone you love.