Have you ever been in your vehicle and let out a yawn? It might have come after a hard day at work. It might have come first thing in the morning on your way to work, after a bit of a late night or a poor night’s sleep. Or it might have come on a hot summer’s day, sitting in traffic with the sun beating down on your vehicle.
Feeling tired while driving is a normal everyday occurrence. And therein lies the problem. It is so normal that most drivers do not give a second thought to how dangerous it can be. They carry on driving, because that is what they have always done.
It takes a moment’s lapse of concentration to crash
It takes nothing to crash. Close your eyes or mentally drift off for a second, and it could happen to you. If you are crawling along in heavy traffic, that crash is unlikely to be that serious, perhaps just minor damage to both vehicles. But if you are traveling at the speeds motorists often drive at, the consequences could be much more serious.
Let’s say you are traveling at 60 mph. Each minute, you cover 1 mile, and each second you cover one sixtieth of a mile – approximately 88 feet. Lose focus or shut your eyes for just two seconds and you will have traveled 166 feet, not far off half the distance of a football field. Yet, instead of a bunch of opposition players running at you, who you need to avoid, you could have things such as other cars, motorcycles or pedestrians. Unlike the football player who is on high alert for danger, you may be blissfully unaware they are there.
If you feel tired when driving, pull over and take a break. It reduces the chance you cause a crash, or are caught up in one caused by another driver who did not take a break when needed.
