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Restless
The other day, as I was driving home after a long day of physical work, I nearly fell asleep behind the wheel.
I hadn’t slept well the night before. There was too much on my mind, and it was too hot. The day was hot, too, and I was outside for the entirety of it, the sun beating down on me and the ground dry as dust.
The drive was long, too. About half an hour, which is an excruciatingly long time for an exhausted body and a weary mind to sit still and focus on the road continuously.
I knew I was tired. I blasted the air conditioning, I rolled down the windows to let the wind whip me awake. I turned on the radio, tried to get engaged in some local news, turned up the volume on some upbeat tunes.
I was nearly home when my eyelids began to get the better of me and drooped below any reasonable height for a good view of the road. It was only when my tire scuffed a curb that I snapped out of it, shaken. My quickened pulse and adrenaline rush were enough to get me the rest of the way home.
I have always understood the dangers of impaired driving. Heard the horror stories about the fatal outcomes of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Even understood the risks associated with using handheld devices on the road.
But somehow, I was convinced avoiding these dangers was safe enough.
Last week, a Wellington man, driving alone in the wee hours of the morning—presumably heading home—sailed off the road and into a tree. He was dead before emergency crews arrived.
Although the cause of the crash was still under investigation at the time of publication, only our imaginations can complete the story of his last moments. Still, given the nature of the incident, it is a sobering reminder that driving tired is not safe.
Drowsy driving can be as dangerous as drunk driving and, for that matter, drowsy drivers will convince themselves they can handle the drive as often as intoxicated drivers.
According to the Traffic Injury Research Foundation of Canada, more than 40 per cent of drivers don’t see fatigued driving as a serious issue and only 14 per cent of drivers will pull over and rest if they are having difficulty staying awake.
According to the Canada Safety Council, this behaviour is behind 21 per cent of all collisions and responsible for 2,500 deaths and serious injuries every year.
It only takes a few minutes, pulled over at a rest stop or in a parking lot, to get enough sleep to stay awake on the road. Our vehicles may be tools we use daily, but they are also dangerous pieces of heavy machinery.
Personally, I was lucky to have arrived alive that day. I could have easily ended up by the side of the road, thrust at full speed into a tree.
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