I’ve told you about the midnight drives I used to take to visit my college boyfriend after I finished working the second shift at my first TV job. It seems like an eternity ago, but I still remember with great clarity how I used to fight to stay awake behind the wheel. I would make the 2-hour drive after working a 10-hour shift and to say I was fatigued would be an understatement. The fact that I had to splash water on my face while I was driving really should have been a sign that I shouldn’t have been driving.
Looking back I can’t believe how dumb I was. I should have never been driving at that hour of the night. (See what love can do.) But, I know that I am not alone. In a recent study of college students, more than 80% questioned admitted they had momentarily dozed while driving. Eighteen percent said they actually fell asleep. According to the study, the highest rate of close calls occurred among sophomores, and most often the problems occurred while driving home for breaks or to vacation spots. In other words their drives tended to come on the heels of sleepless nights spent cramming for exams.
But it’s not just college students who get behind the wheel when their tired. According to researchers, shift workers who are forced by their jobs to be awake during “normal” sleeping hours are also at high risk for fatigue-related crashes. A study of hospital nurses revealed that working four or more day or evening shifts and then four or more night shifts within a month caused serious sleep disruptions.
Researchers also found that nurses on rotating-shift schedules suffered more near-miss accidents in cars and more mishaps at work than nurses working on other schedules. And here’s a startling find, according to the study, 95% of the nurses working a 12-hour night shift reported having had car accidents or near-misses while driving home from work.
Have you ever got behind the wheel when you were tired?
Related Articles:
On The Road: Tips For Women Who Travel Alone
On The Road–More Tips For Women Who Travel Alone