Driving tired is something that we all do from time to time. Driving around in most
urban areas has become rather a pain in the rear, especially when going to and
from our place of work. Commuting is always slowest when we have an early
morning meeting and our nervous tension rises.
But that is not the only
problem with those early meetings. We have in all probability put our alarm
clock on earlier than usual, which wakes our grumpy partner, maybe the kids and
certainly the dog and cat. The latter demands food and the former demands
walks.
The result is that you end
up driving tired. Mistakes are, of course, due to those other dorks on
the road, but when you’re driving tired, there are always many more of them
travelling in the space that you have bought and paid for with you damn taxes!
In a recent study published in PLoS ONE, Di
Milia et al set about quantifying the
effect of driver sleepiness during commuting (1). I should state at the outset
that they did not look at the way a tired driver attracts dorks so that is an
area crying out for grant applications. The study looked at sleepiness and the
outcomes for night shift workers and those of us who purport to work during the
day, but must commute.
The study took place in Queensland, OZ, where
they inveigled the local police to stop people for random breath tests and
invited them after their blow job to go down the road and sign up for an “are
you dozy?” survey. Not a great idea when you’re hurrying, bleary eyed, with
your mouth tasting worse than the bottom of your parrot’ s cage, to that
strategy meeting critical to your career prospects.
About 60% of the invited
participants participated. This amounted to almost 650 drivers. A significant
number worked the night shift. They indicated their tiredness level, how much
sleep they’d had and how many driving booboos that they had made. No one totaled,
killed or otherwise blotted their driver’s license, but there was far too much
wandering across lanes accidentally for it to be a good thing.
Workers on the night shift
were making more errors and were sleepier than non-night workers, but
sleepiness was clearly bad. The authors suggest roadside tiredness tests rather
like the random breath tests as a solution. Sounds like a very bad idea to me.
Much better to rush forward conversion kits to make all our cars Google cars which
will drive about with only the occasional word of advice and ecouragement from a
hardworking Joe or Jill.
