Driving tired is bad news.
The risk of driving tired is as high as driving under the influence of alcohol,
or so we’re told. Of course, it is all a matter of degree, how tired and how
much alcohol, but nevertheless it’s an increased risk of not being able to
anticipate that clown doing something in front of you – never your fault
remember, your insurance company insist on that.
Now freeways/motorways are
where these days we frequently spend time on long journeys. Not very exciting
driving and the speeds are high – let’s say 10 M.P.H. above the speed limit if
we are conservative. But hours heading
home on that long unending ribbon of asphalt can cause the eyelids to become
inordinately heavy.
The cure is that we take is a
break and maybe a coffee, but is this optimal? Well, Taillard et al have asked
this question and reported out in PLoS ONE last week (1). The team based in
Bordeaux and Sweden would have had plenty of opportunities of putting their
findings to the test if they have been commuting to each other’s institutions.
They focused their
attention on 40 males in the age range 20 – 50-years old. Women may come later,
we’ll see. The task was to head out at 1 A.M. and drive 250 miles to finish at
a little after 5 A.M. Note no participants were lost during the experiments.
The rigorous experimental
driving program had three conditions. The first was a 15-minute break with a
coffee flavored drink (minimal caffeine) and the second was a proper cup of
coffee with a carefully measured caffeine dose. The third and most innovative
condition had a portable “imitation sunlight” unit mounted on the dashboard
that emitted a blue light at ~470 nm. This is the type of light is sold to cheer
us up during those dark winter days or just during a long period of dark cloudy
weather to keep us from S.A.D.
The blue light was almost
as effective as the coffee in preventing the tired drivers from wandering over
the lane markings of the road in an unpredictable fashion.
Nobody would want a portable
light unit on the dash which could fly around when we have to take evasive
action when some pesky pedestrian, other driver, or in extremis, a police car interrupts
our progress.
The answer is clearly that
car manufacturers should fit our instrument panels with a blue light
illumination. Don’t let us neglect coffee though. Once the caffeine starts to
wear off, the steady increase in bladder pressure is sure to keep us awake and
encourage us to take another break and help us when we’re driving tired.
