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> I have a history of dozing off at the wheel. Have you tried to address this issue? This seems like a huge safety concern and you're actively choosing to put
by cptskippy 6y ago
> I have a history of dozing off at the wheel.
Have you tried to address this issue? This seems like a huge safety concern and you're actively choosing to put others in harms way by continuing to drive.
- nexuist 6y agoI agree. If this is something like e.g. narcolepsy, you should see a doctor. There are a few low-risk prescriptions worth looking into. When I used to pull 18 hour days, I would also notice myself getting tired behind the wheel, but never fully falling asleep. My low-tech solution to this was to set an alarm for 10 minutes after I started driving and setting the alarm volume to max. Then, the alarm would go off in the middle of my drive, usually surprising me and jolting me awake since I'm obviously not paying attention to the time. Then, snoozing the alarm would make it go away for another 10 minutes, and so on until I made it home. This is probably not the perfect solution but it worked for me. Obviously the better long term solution is to a) not do 18 hour days and b) address what is making you so sleepy and stop it from happening.
- ogre_codes 6y ago> When I used to pull 18 hour days, I would also notice myself getting tired behind the wheel, but never fully falling asleep. This is fairly similar to what would trigger it with me. My solution was to ensure I have passengers or let someone else drive.
- smeyer 6y agoIt's hard to imagine that you were alert enough to safely drive even with the alarm. I'd urge anyone in a similar situation to stay off the roads; your ability to work 18 hour days is less important than the safety of everyone on the road.
- nexuist 6y agoYeah, what helped me is that on those nights I elected to avoid the highway and only take city roads, so lots of traffic, red lights, stop lights, etc. that allowed me to drive slowly. The downside is that sitting at stop lights made me sleepier, hence the alarms. Avoiding highways was what saved me I think; a mistake at 20mph is far less expensive than a mistake at 80mph. But certainly you're right; the obvious answer is to avoid driving or as another commenter said, carpool!
- adolph 6y agoIndeed. In a fail-safer world maybe an original use for driver monitoring and autopilot would be to move the vehicle to a safe spot to stop and perform alerting.
- ogre_codes 6y agoYes. Mostly I just learned to recognize when I'm getting tired and pull over and take a nap which is a massive help. Also, it's pretty uncommon for me to drive solo anymore so it's far less of an issue. Oddly, it was a bigger issue when I was younger. It hasn't happened to me in quite a few years, but the awareness of it has lingered, thus my desire to take extra precautions.
- orbital-decay 6y ago>Also, it's pretty uncommon for me to drive solo anymore so it's far less of an issue. There's almost nothing a person in another seat can do if you are asleep, even if they realize that in time (and that's a huge assumption). Speaking as someone who has unhealthy interest at failures, disasters, and their root causes, this type of attitude is super common, and always leads to disasters. Please seek medical attention before you killed somebody and yourself. You can't rely on self-control.