SLEEP DRIVING AND HIGHWAY HYPNOSIS ARE SILENT KILLERS ON OUR ROADS.
By Philip Janet Kavutha
When we discuss the safety of the road, we are referring to drunk driving, over speeding or reckless over taking. However, there is an even lesser-known danger that is taking an equally disastrous toll, sleep driving. And immediately behind that, is its evil twin, white line fever whereby drivers enter into a trance and drive with autopilot without even knowing it. This leads to highway hypnosis, a condition in which the driver is conscious enough to steer but he or she can hardly recall the last bit of road travelled.
They are all murderous in silence and are terribly underestimated. Sleep driving is not that casual, “I am a little tired”, a feeling that most individuals ignore and dismiss. It is driving when your brain is pleading to have a rest or rather when it’s shutting down…. It is the blurring vision, the slowing of the thoughts, the responding too, slowly. When that happens, you are in the driver seat, although you are not entirely present. That second lost concentration is a life lost.
Highway hypnosis is even more difficult. You may be full of life, but the scene offered by long and straight roads makes one get into a kind of trance. You have the eyes open, and the hands on the wheel, but the brain is wandering, doing the autopilot. It takes several alert drivers to come to their senses when they pass by an exit, fall asleep at the side of the road, or the honk of an alarmed driver.
I have been exposed to this risk directly. I once sat beside a driver on a long ride and suddenly, the driver turned and asked me and I quote, “When did we pass that town D?” My heart sank. We had long since overtaken it, nearly twenty minutes ago. He had been driving the entire time, switching lanes, and passing by, avoiding bumps but he did not remember any of it. That was no fatigue, but highway hypnosis. And at that point I knew how much we had strayed so near to a tragedy without ever having realized it.
However, the thing that appalled me more was a revelation of a friend of mine. They informed me that they had been making long distance trips almost two weeks without sleep, working 24 hours through night and day. At one moment they had gone dead in the middle of the way, and only awoke at the shake of the road, pulled over beside the road, rested for a bit and continued with the journey.
He said something that still sends chills to me: “I knew I was not okay but kept reminding myself that I could cope.” That sentence is the very reason as to why sleep-driving is such a lethal phenomenon. Fatigue tricks you…
The fact remains that being behind the wheel in a fatigued state is as dangerous as being behind the wheel and intoxicated. The society views fatigue as something that can be “pushed through”. Long distance drivers compel themselves into continuing. Students leave the late-night study sessions believing that a brisk breeze of fresh air will wake them up. Parents make early mornings with two hours sleep. We accept exhaustion as normal and in doing so we accept risk as normal.
The reason behind the severity of sleep driving and highway hypnosis is that they deceive the driver. You feel like you' re managing. You hope that the music will make you wake up. You believe that a window down will do the trick. Biology however is not a bargain. When sleep invades, the brain enters into micro sleeps, tiny cephalic gaps of sleep that last a few seconds. When in a highway, the two seconds you fall asleep at 100 km/h translate to over 50 metres of driving in total blindness. No one walks away from that.
We should not continue seeing rest as a choice. Transport companies should allow drivers to get enough rest time. Sleep driving, white line fever and highway hypnosis in roads needs to be dealt with as drunk driving is dealt with by road safety campaigns. And even drivers have to be educated that taking a 15-minute break is not an admission of a lack of strength, it is an exercise of duty.
Because the truth is simple,
Roads don' t forgive. Highway hypnosis does not caution you. The sleep does not seek permission. And when some accidents occur, there is no rewind button. And before you get to start driving on your journey, answer a very easy question: “Will I be awake enough to make it?” There is nothing in this world that makes your life or the life of your fellow travellers on the road worth your destination, your deadline, or your trip.
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