Reducing fatigue and drowsy driving the smart way
The busy lifestyle we seem to have can often lead to becoming fatigued or drowsy behind the wheel. However, there can be a few things we can do to reduce the feeling of drowsy driving or fatigued driving.
One of the things we need to understand is how fatigue driving or drowsy driving affects us when we’re behind the wheel. When our brain becomes tired it reduces our ability to make good driving decisions. It also means the brain is late sending appropriate messages to your eyes, your hands, and your feet while you’re driving. Imagine how this may affect your ability to drive a vehicle safely. Drowsy and fatigued driving is too dangerous to consider taking a chance with, although many people seem to ignore the symptoms.
Some of the beliefs associated with drowsy driving or fatigued driving are that it will generally only happen late at night, after your normal bedtime. It can actually happen during any time of day, since we can feel tired, even during daylight hours. And by the way, there is a difference between becoming drowsy and becoming fatigued. Although they seem to be similar, they are not exactly the same. This means the solutions to each are a little different.
Being tired is generally an expected feeling after completing a number of activities throughout the day or at the end of a busy day. Like most people, you know why you’re feeling tired most of the time and often a good night’s sleep will generally solve the issue of being tired. The feeling of fatigue is frequently a daily lack of energy. It generally means your entire body is tired which is not usually lessened by having some sleep.
To become drowsy behind the wheel, it may have been that you slept poorly recently, perhaps over a few days. After you get behind the wheel and drive, your eyes seem to get extremely tired. This is when you realize you need sleep. Having a 15 – 20-minute nap can make a big difference to help keep you awake so you can continue driving. However, if you can’t safely pull over, there may be a few things you can do to help you remain awake enough until you can get a chance to pull into a safe place to have a rest.
The short-term solutions to help you stay awake really don’t work as well as many may think. This would include drinking strong coffee or other caffeine drink, blowing cold air on their face, playing loud music, having a sugary snack, and trying to have an in-depth conversation. These suggestions may work for some, hopefully, long enough to safely get to the side of the road or a parking lot in order to take a rest.
For fatigue, we need to recognize the early signs. Some of the signs of driver fatigue would include having a tough time keeping your eyes open regularly, perhaps your energy level has drastically dropped, maybe yawning a lot, you tend to be wandering side to side in your lane or you may have very little focus on the driving task. If any of these signs are happening, it’s time to change what you’re doing.
If we can identify any of these signs as soon as possible before driving, it will be a great help. However, if you’re driving for a longer period of time, any of these symptoms may appear while you’re already in motion. There are things drivers do to help them stay alert while driving.
Let’s determine proactive ways to avoid driving fatigued altogether. One of the best pieces of advice is to ensure you have plenty of rest before driving. It won’t matter if your drive is 60 minutes or 10 minutes, fatigue can happen quite easily.
Scheduling breaks every few hours on longer drives will allow you time to exit your vehicle to stretch and take a washroom break. If you decide to take a long drive, the best solution is to possibly share the drive with another person, but switch drivers before you get too tired. Avoiding heavy meals right before driving also helps. Eating lighter snacks is often better than having a big meal before you drive. As far as snacks go, apples are great to help keep you alert and awake behind the wheel. Since a very warm interior can help to cause drowsiness, it would be good to keep the interior of the vehicle cool.
Stubborn drivers may believe they can handle the vehicle safely while fatigued or drowsy. As good drivers, we should realize we can’t handle it as we should. If having your eyes closed for roughly three seconds at 50 km/h scares you, that’s what it would be like if you drive drowsy or fatigued. This could mean passing through an intersection or through a stop sign or red light at the same time as someone else.