drowsiness while driving your car

Has anyone experience drowsiness while driving your car?

I constantly have drowsiness when I drive my car greater than 40mins. The car engine droning noise cause me to fall asleep.

How do you guys cope with this drowsiness problem? Do you drink coffee?

I've had this problem most of my adult life.

Usually it is by sheer will that I keep from falling asleep.

Now I use a rubber band, or I think about Baghdad, or in the extreme cases I pull over and take a break.

I use music. If it's cool weather rolling down the window and getting a blast of air in the face also helps. It may sound odd but chewing on strong flavored gum also seems to help a little.

Have you considered that you might have a sleeping problem, like sleep apnea or something?

You might want to see a doctor. I did and it changed my life.

We hired a taxi in Europe years ago for a 7 hour trip (long story). Anyway, we stopped along the way to eat and offered to pay his meal and he refused pretty much saying a slight hunger would help keep him awake. And of course that a big meal makes you sleepy. I never forgot that and its worked for me ever since (with a little coffee of course.) Not to starve yourself but try not eating a big meal before you drive.

I am an almost lifelong insomniac and have seen a doc. It has improved lately, and I feel much better than I used to, it's just too soon for me to be overly optimistic.

(For those who might be wondering, I refused to drive in a seriously impaired condition.)

Make sure you have no holes in the car, could be carbon monoxide making you sleepy. Especially if it happens every time you drive. Are you getting headaches?

Do whatever it takes to fix this problem. No matter what the police reports say, driver fatigue is probably the number one cause of solo vehicle traffic collisions (and I should know, I worked about a jillion solo rollovers on I-5). In my younger days I used to drive much longer than I should have; I rolled the window down, sang to the radio (thank goodness no one could hear me), and often stopped to walk around and spash water in my face to stay awake...

Amen! The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively [my emphasis] 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.

(Scary) stats from DrowsyDriving.org:

• 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!

• Men are more likely than women to drive while drowsy (56% vs. 45%) and are almost twice as likely as women to fall asleep while driving (22% vs. 12%).

• People who sleep six to seven hours a night are twice as likely to be involved in such a crash as those sleeping 8 hours or more, while people sleeping less than 5 hours increased their risk four to five times.

• A study...in Australia showed that being awake for 18 hours produced an impairment equal to a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .05, and .10 after 24 hours; .08 is considered legally drunk.

• This will wake you up: Several drowsy driving incidents have resulted in jail sentences for the driver. Multi-million dollar settlements have been awarded to families of crash victims as a result of lawsuits filed against individuals as well as businesses whose employees were involved in drowsy driving crashes.

Their suggested countermeasures. My personal "countermeasure" — a wife who talks incessantly, especially if she thinks I'm getting drowsy while driving

Here's a commercial "gadget," the Driver Alert Master, although I'd rather practice prevention and not rely on something that kicks in after I've nodded off. Better than nothing maybe, but a) what if you don't activate it, and b) there's the danger of "over-correcting" after being startled awake.

I think the best countermeasure is to know your own personal limitations and warning signs.

Ferinstance, I know that when I'm driving at night and lights start to *hurt* my eyes I'm getting dangerous. It starts with oncoming headlights, then streetlights, traffic lights. When the reflection of my own headlights off of signs starts to hurt...

Also, when that little voice says "Just close your eyes for one little second, you can open them again, just for a second, its ok..."

Exactly, often I find that I don't even necessarily need sleep when drowsiness sets in. Just getting out of the car, walking around and stretching or pulling over and closing my eyes for half an hour brings me back to wakefulness. This is after driving five or six hours, not being awake eighteen, though.

A S-load of caffeine does the job for me.

Once that fatigue hits in, and that fatigue turns into drowsiness, I believe the ONLY safe thing to do is to pull-over and catch a nap. It might last 5 minutes, or 30, or you might not be able to sleep but you would feel refreshed anyways.

When I was a teenager I remember driving home WAY too late and always feeling very drowsy. Nothing ever happened but it hit home one night when I noticed I didn't remember going through the last intersection (which was red).

It simply isn't worth it.


When the drowsiness hits, a 10 minute nap is faster than a hit of caffeine.

Do you know what really wakes you up when you're driving and thinking that it's time to pull over?

One is passing an accident on the freeway somewhere around Fresno about midnight, where a guy driving a station wagon fell asleep, went through the oleander shrub divider, and hit a semi head-on. The victim's wagon was buried under the truck halfway up the windshild. The driver of the semi was sitting on the ground beside his truck, his face on his knees and his arms wrapped around his head.

Pull over and rest. It just isn't worth it.

Sue

I am reminded of two incidents that tested my driving duration limits.

The first was while in dry-dock in Seattle Shipyards. I was heading home after getting about 3 hours sleep in 3 days (you try sleeping while someone's working on your house 24/7). I had to go about 70 miles to get home, through Seattle rush hour traffic. I was in a different world by the time I got home.

The second was on a non-stop from Seattle to Tucson AZ at Christmas. We left Seattle early morning, and I drove as far as I could. I got to Sacramento and hit late night fog. By then I'd been driving about 16 hours and the fog was so bad I could see maybe two car lengths in front of me. I just kept at 65 mph the whole time and tried to watch for red lights. Dad was asleep in the back seat, and little brother was sitting next to me too scared to sleep. I finally got to the top of the grapevine when my ears gave out and I rousted dad so he could drive through north LA at 4:30 am. I sacked for about 3 hours, then woke up and drove the rest of the way. 32 hours from Seattle to Tucson. I don't know what I was trying to prove.

my honda 1993 car has off market manifold that isn't well insulated from noise as well as Honda brand. Besides my car is old compare to new Honda models. It lacks interior insulation. I use ear plugs to reduce the noise but I can still hear the droning of engine noise.

I am just wondering if something is wrong with my body. I did have a hearing test and the results indicated that my hearing is more sensitive on certain frequencies.

I think your body is fine. You are just susceptible to external stimulus is all, same as me. Sometimes it invigorates, sometimes it pacifies.

Something else I've tried with some success is language learning recordings.

I listen to books on tape, I own several but the local library has hundreds! Try it.

Heh, that would put me to sleep while driving, and I don’t normally have the driving drowsy problem.

I tried to listen to a book on tape, but it was so distracting to pay attention to the road and try to take in the facts of the book on tape at the same time. I can chew while driving though ;P

As perverse as it may sound I prefer to listen to books I have already read.

After coming intimately acquainted with a gravel run-out at the bottom of a hill last week, I wish I'd have read this thread earlier. On the other hand I now recall moments from my childhood I had previously forgotten.
No amount of stimulant can overcome 28 hours of playing soldiers, the only thing that helps is a quick break (15 mins min) and a walk around.
If you are that tired, stop. Its not worth the pain.

I work my police scanner to get situational awareness. Thinking about what's going on up ahead keeps my mind busy. If there's little traffic I'll scan for airplane transmissions or search for frequencies of the towns going by (if I'm in unfamiliar territory)

I'm far too nervous about what the other drivers are going to do next to get drowsy. Maybe you should be more fearful?

In truck driving school they advised a 30 minute nap. Less isn't as effective and more will put you into a groggy state when you try to get going again.

Fresno? Stay away from Fresno, bad things happen around there all the time!!!

Sounds like someone is speaking from experience. The question is, is it good or bad?

Kris

Hi,



I wanted to let you know that the National Sleep Foundation has launched a new site where you can share or create a memorial for a loved one lost to a drowsy driving crash. The site accepts stories and tributes from anyone whose life has been impacted by drowsy driving. It is a very moving and emotional site; you can read first-hand how a drowsy driving crash can happen to anyone at any time.



To share your memorial or story, please visit www.sleepfoundation.org/memorial The site also offers lots of grief related services and resources too.



Also, if you want to learn more about how to prevent drowsy driving, visit www.DrowsyDriving.org -- there is a wealth of valuable information on the site.



Thank you.

National Sleep Foundation

I love books on CD or better yet the CDs of the old 30s-40s radio programs when heading out on long trips across open country. the miles fly by.

thank you for the link. I find it very informative. i am checking out the link right now.

As a person that drives 540 miles just about every other weekend the best advice I can offer is find a rest stop and pull over for a few minutes.

I've had days where, no matter what, I couldn't shake feeling tired. I'd pull over in a safe area, take a 15-20 minute nap, and I was good to go. Often enough, just pulling over and taking a nice stretch was all I needed.

I've tried caffeinated drinks, cold air, hot air, eating, not eating, blasting the radio, basically everything I can think of. Still, for me, nothing works better than taking a little nap.

I get about 70 miles per 16oz cup of coffee. I get coffee from places that I have to go into. I walk, I think, I look around, and I get coffee and refreshed!

That's my system and I'm sticking to it !!!!!!

Probably the best system going. Just getting out of the car for a few minutes can make all the difference in the world...