Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service

ARE YOU TOO TIRED TO DRIVE?

Sqn Ldr Di Lamb

Imagine the irony of surviving a lengthy deployment to Afghanistan, and all the dangers that can entail, just to return home and still be deprived of the one thing you’ve been longing for the entire time you’ve been away . . . . . . . . to be reunited with your loved ones, possibly for good!

That’s the problem, we just don’t apportion a high enough priority to considering the length of time we’ve been awake and our ability to drive safely. Research has shown that when you have been awake for between 17 and 19-hours, the effects on your ability to react quickly to adverse road conditions and concentrate on maintaining a safe speed, distance and road position would mirror that of when you had exceeded the legal limit to drive. If you wouldn’t think of driving home drunk, then why would you consider driving home tired when the effects are the same? It doesn’t make sense does it?

At night we have a physiological desire to sleep over which we have no control and this is the reason that we are 10 times more likely to have a car accident during this time. The quality of sleep we achieve is also an important consideration, broken or intermittent sleep, such as that achieved as a passenger on an aircraft, does not effectively restore alertness levels. In essence, you are at an increased risk of having a car crash if you drive at night, when you have been awake for extended periods of time or when you have worked irregular hours that has prevented you from achieving sufficient rest.

You were probably unaware of the Joint Service Publications that exist to outline safe driving practice. Indeed, JSP 800 dictates that Service personnel returning to the UK by air are not permitted to self-drive a Service vehicle if they have exceeded a duty period equal to, or exceeding 13-hrs. Therefore, when more than one person from the same Unit returns from OOA, they should not find themselves in a position of self-driving a hire car from RAF Brize Norton if they have exceeded this timeline. However, anecdotally this practice has occurred recently and is probably due to a lack of awareness of these regulations and of the risks associated with a decision to go ahead and drive.

The public’s growing intolerance of fatigued drivers was heightened after the Selby train crash in 2001 when, at 0600hrs, a sleep deprived driver veered off the M62 and into the path of an oncoming freight train. Consequently, 10 people died and a further 30 were seriously injured. The driver fell asleep at the wheel following a night with little or no sleep; he was subsequently sentenced to 5-yrs in jail for causing death by dangerous driving. When fatigue is found to be the cause of an accident, the driver’s insurance is invalidated, so you may escape serious injury but will be paying the financial penalties for your actions for some time to come!

Landmark legislation in the US was passed in 2003, which addressed the dangers of fatigued drivers. Under Maggie’s Law, a driver can be charged with “vehicular homicide” if found to have been awake for more than 24-hrs, which is punishable by a maximum 10-yr jail sentence and massive fines. Conversely, UK law advocates that it is an individual’s responsibility to ensure their actions are safe and no statutory legislation currently exists to dictate the period of sleep deprivation after which driving a private vehicle is not permitted.

Whilst driving, if you have ever lacked the ability to recall certain parts of a journey and wondered how on earth you’d got to that point on the route, then you’ve probably experienced what is termed a “microsleep”. These are unintentional episodes of attention loss, which can last a few seconds to several minutes and are common in fatigued drivers. To appreciate the dangers associated with such events it is important to appreciate that during such a lapse in attention that lasts only 4 seconds, a car would travel more than 100m at an average speed of 60mph. Frightening isn’t it? You obviously lived to tell the tale of your attention lapse but that was by pure luck not judgement!

Still confused? Not sure if you’re safe to drive or not? Unlike the breath analyser that establishes if you’re too drunk to drive, there is not currently a scientific measure to establish your fatigue level. However, research has shown that there are symptoms that seriously increase your risk of having a car crash. After a tiring shift ask yourself if you are experiencing any of the following:

Continual yawning

Trouble keeping your eyes focused

Fighting to stay awake.

If you answer “Yes” to any of these symptoms then regard this as a serious warning. You should then either ask a friend for a lift home, get a family member to pick you up or take a period of rest in the Mess. The last thing you should do is get behind the wheel of your car. Be honest, there’s no point denying your symptoms, as the only person you are cheating is yourself! and REMEMBER . . . . it’s not only your life you are risking! If you want to help your son blow out the candles on his next birthday cake or see your niece in her first nativity play, get some sleep before you drive.

CRASH IN BED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOT YOUR CAR!