Asleep at the Wheel

[dbuckley]

When we last flew back from Florida, we arrived back early morning at Gatwick. I can't sleep very easily on planes or coaches, so I was kn***ered before I started.

Ah yes, Florida.

 

When we last holiday'd over there we'd hired a villa. Been to the area before so know the basic geography, and had already purchased the road atlas. I knew I'd be knackered after getting off the plane, so I had my route planned and documented, as well as a backup. We would be getting there early AM, so all at night driving and navigating.

 

Well, upon leaving the airport, the prime route had changed, and the backup had been wrecked by a truck banging into a bridge a few nights earlier. So, lost. After an hour of my brain just failing to get to grips with navigation through excessive tieredness we just stopped at the next motel and crashed. Refreshed in the morning I couldn't believe how incapable I must have been, orientation took one road junction and 20 mins later we were at the villa. lack of sleep really does wreck your brain.

 

Other than that, I did nearly wrap a Transit at 4am with a rig and people in the back through nodding off at t'wheel, really serious fog slowed progress to about 20 MPH, but it still would have hurt. That was a long time ago, I like to think I'm more sensible now.

[skivvy]

I've never fallen asleep at the wheel. But normally, there's a few of us who are drivers in the van. But Red Bull and Pro Plus normally works for me. If that fails, get one of the guys to take over for an hour or so, then I'm back into the driving seat again.

[Guest lightnix]

Is it just me, or does anybody else actually find it VERY scary that almost half (46%) of the voters so far have been in a vehicle where the driver has fallen asleep?

 

I know that, as a piece of research, it's hardly representative of the business as a whole, but still... ;) :)

[MarkPAman]

Is it just me........?

No not at all.

I consider myself lucky to have not been doing many late night drives for many years now; maybe a dozen of so in a year, and most of those will be relatively short distances.

I must add though that it is by no means restricted to the entertainment industry. Returning from a short family holiday, my car broke down, resulting in eventually being put on the back of a truck for the last 150 miles, by which time it was midnight or so. The very nice man who drove us was wide awake and drove very well. However, he & I spotted 3 other trucks on the M25 which were showing all the signs of the driver nodding off (both elbows on the wheel seems an obvious one to me). One in particular was changing lanes so randomly, that our driver decided not to pass it, and backed right off. He also radioed details to his office. Another 10 miles & it turned off towards Bristol.

[Rob_Beech]

I am always very alert when over taking vehicles on any road.

 

On motorways I will never overtake a vehicle who shows symptons of a driver nodding off at the wheel until I can be sure it is safe to pass.

 

On A roads, a car traveling quite slowly is often a sign that the driver may be tired. Whilst it may make it easier to overtake them its important to note that if they are tired they could do something unplanned at any moment.

 

A friend of mine told me of a driver infront of them which seemed to be falling asleep. a sudden bump in the road appeared to wake them up. the shock of the sudden wake up must have triggered a reaction with this driver as they slammed on the brakes, Luckily my friend who was driving a small van behind them, was fully alert and not driving too close!

 

Rob

[Johnno]

A bit OT but scary.

 

In the early eighties I worked on the London underground as a guard. As the train emerged from the tunnel to a ground level station I opened the guard's door early to get some fresh air. Standing in the doorway with the tunnel wall whizzing past at thirty five mph I nodded off for a few seconds. If I'd pitched forward I would have been ripped to shreds between the train and the cable brackets that line the tunnel wall.

 

For Londoners it was the Central Line coming eastbound out to either Stratford or Leytonstone. Can't remember now.

 

Never did that again!!

[dbuckley]

Is it just me, or does anybody else actually find it VERY scary that almost half (46%) of the voters so far have been in a vehicle where the driver has fallen asleep?

Scary, but not surprising.

 

If you go up several levels to the big boys world, they have drivers, and their job is to be awake at the wheel, which is why they get to sleep whilst the crew works. Having the same body do a days work on the show and then a days work at the wheel - well, its a recipe for disaster.

[mikienorth]

Yet in the same big boys world, the drivers are almost always supplementing their income with operating followspots during the shows.

Which would make them tired, granted not as tired as someone who has erected, operated, then dismantled a gig, but not exactly daisy fresh when the time comes to move the trucks.

And these are the shows that move in trucks and buses.

Boy do they moan some when they can't park a fleet of 40' trucks outside all day and have to find another way in to get their operator money.

 

To the 46%, of which I am one, and to the others who say they've never seen it.

Don't ever, ever put yourself in a situation where you can see it again.

Pull over, at almost every motorway junction, within a mile there is a layby. Use it. The motorway services might be expensive, but you can park free for a couple of hours. Do it. If someone else can drive, but is moaning that they are tired, remind them that you might be more so, what with doing the driving and all. Make them take a turn.

If there aren't two drivers, and it takes you three times as long to get home as it should, because you pull into every motorway services (average, every 30 miles) to get a bit of sleep, then so be it.

 

It's surprising how un-annoyed the employer who put you in that position will be. In my experience I was driving vanloads of PA around, and if it took me 9 hours to get home instead of 3, the boss wasn't annoyed the kit was late back, or that it'd have to go out unprepped, or that the extra gear would have to stay in the van, he was happier that rather than risk my life, and the van, and the tens of thousands of pounds of money earning gear by driving while asleep, that I brought it all back with maybe a few beer splashes, or a few more scratches, or basically intact.

 

Yes, kit may be insured, but insurance doesn't earn you money. You could claim for gigs you had booked perhaps, but what about all the ones that weren't. When you lose gear, you lose money, simple.

 

Better to have late gear than no gear, or drivers, or, vans, or a prosecution from the HSE...

 

If everyone stops chancing thier lives and health through work, then the practice will end, and lives will be saved. Certain major trucking firms drivers are careful about even moving trailers around a venue, as to do so means starting their clock, which means by the end of the out they cannot get the trailers to the next place, not neccesarily the next venue, but typically half an hours drive away. I have heard that technically the same drivers should start the clock when they are tying off in the trailer, as they are working. To save time they don't.

[Bobbsy]

It's worth remembering that if you fall asleep at the wheel in circumstances where it can be shown that you were too tired to drive safely, you can be held legally responsible.

 

UK residents will probably remember the Selby train crash a few years back. A man sat up all night chatting to his girlfriend on the internet, then attempted to do a motorway journey. He fell asleep at the wheel and, through very bad luck, went down an embankment and landed on a railway mainline. A train hit the wreck, was derailed and then a second train ploughed into THAT wreckage. Ten persons were killed.

 

The driver who fell asleep at the wheel was convicted of ten counts of causing death through dangerous driving and sentenced to five years in prison.

 

Frankly, the fear of criminal charges should be the least important reason for not pushing your luck when driving, but it IS yet another reason not to do it.

 

Bob

[Johnno]

"I hope to die in my sleep like my father did, not screaming in terror like his passengers" (Bob Monkhouse)

[tanko]

As a side thought, who has fallen asleep while 'driving' at the sound or lighting console???

 

Steve

 

Ahh falling asleep at front of house, this is something I have to admit having done more than once! best was during panto 2 years ago, I fell asleep in the middle of the comic's headline gag, which included a light bulb, that naturally had to be turned on and off, he wanted a fade, so on a dimmer and submaster it went, leaving me to have some vague amount of participation in said gag. As I am sure you can imagine after that untill the end of the run, every time the comic came on for this gag 'now then boys and girls, we have to wake tank up for this bit'

 

Tank.

 

 

edit - pointless information!!

[Panzerman]

I am not as much prone to falling asleep at the wheel. But have started hallucinating when driving tired which is quite scary

 

 

In other words, you are asleep at the wheel! ;)

 

You don't have to have your eyes closed to be asleep. The hypnagogic state is a twilight zone where you are neither one nor the other, and as far as driving is concerned you HAVE to be fully awake. If you are seeing things, you need to stop immediately and sleep, there's no way round it, I'm afraid. "White Line Fever" doesn't just refer to powder, when the lines in the centre of the road become hypnotic, you're in trouble!

 

As a sufferer of Narcolepsy, I'm well aware of the vagaries of sleep, of the differences between physical states and the Twilight Zone where unfortunately I spend a lot of time, possibly more than anyone here. It's my specialist subject, it's affected every area of my life.

I know that when I'm seeing odd things, no matter what time of day, or if whoever is riding shotgun suddenly realises I'm talking utter ######### (even more than usual!), it's time to pull over at the first safe opportunity. Even if I neck a load of Amphetamines (as prescribed by my doctor, perfectly legit, thank you!) it takes at least 20 mins to take effect, and is not really what I want to be doing on my way home from a job. The one and only surefire way to combat it is to pull over and sleep, even if I have an hour and a half in one service station, then limp to the next and have another kip there.

My one advantage over "normal" people (and the reason I haven't surrendered my licence) is that I KNOW when my body is beginning to shut down, I know there's no way round it, no matches under the eyelids, no sing-songs, no fresh air is going to prevent it, I'm going to sleep and it's better for it to happen at the side of the road with my engine off, than in the outside lane of the M6. Incidentally, after advice from a long distance trucker, I have trained myself to wake up if I'm having a dream about driving, just in case I'm not in my bed when having the dream!

 

My surprise at the poll here is that the majority appear to have never experienced being asleep or knowing someone asleep at the wheel. I would venture they are very very lucky, given the nature and times of our work, or worse, they have no idea they have experienced it. It's not something to be proud of and not heroic to forge homewards after a job when you are trying to over-ride your body's need for sleep, but then it's nothing to be ashamed of if it has happened to you. The thing is to recognise the signs and do something about it ASAP, then you won't end up being a roadie for Cozy Powell (RIP)

[Guest lightnix]

...You don't have to have your eyes closed to be asleep. The hypnagogic state is a twilight zone...

That's a very good point. Another thing that's had me worried over the years, are the considerable number of times when I've driven home feeling perfectly alert and OK, but (once I've got there) have just gone spark out on the sofa / floor and fallen into a long, deep sleep - way before the kettle has even boiled :o

 

The big thing to watch out for when you're in that state (not that you'll be able to do much about it) is sleep paralysis. This is a normal part of the sleep process, about which little is known, but what seems to happen is that the brain shuts down the body during REM (dream) sleep, to stop the sleeper from physically enacting their dreams (laboratory cats, who have had this function surgically removed, have been observed to chase imaginary prey in their sleep). This can happen while your brain is still conscious and you feel awake. One of the times it can happen, is when you are very, very tired.

 

FWIW the time it takes you to fall asleep is another good indicator of how tired you are. At the end of a "normal" day, it should take around 12-15 minutes. Anything under 10 and you are "tired"; under 5 and you probably shouldn't have been driving. SkyTV recently subjected one of their business presenters to a busy 24 hour day, as part of a piece on sleep and had him report his experiences along the way. At the end of it, it took him just two minutes to go to sleep, which (according to the experts) made him "exhausted".

 

One other way to judge how tired you are, is to lie down on the hard, cold, concrete floor of the venue. The more comfortable it feels, the more tired you are; that's my experience, anyway :unsure:

[djw1981]

The kettle comment also illustrates a major nissue at the moment which the government are highlighting in connection with alcohol but which is just as concerned with sleep.

 

The advert is the guy who comes home puts the oven on sits down witha beer and falls asleep, next thing the place is in flames.

 

How many of us have sat at Traffic lights and been so out of it that we didn't notice they had changed to green - especially at 2am; or as lightnix says, come home shattered and sparked out with the kettle or microwave going. Safe enough normally, but if that was the oven etc....

[Bobbsy]

How many of us have sat at Traffic lights and been so out of it that we didn't notice they had changed to green -

 

Slightly OT, but I was behind a driver who did this, spending a cycle of the lights slumped over his steering wheel at about 7AM. He took great exception when I beeped my horn at him on the next green and followed me all the way to my destination (the train station).

 

Ironically, it turned out to be a policeman who'd just come off the night shift. He tried to get shirty and officious with me until he realised I had two witnesses since, I assume, the tale wouldn't have helped his career much.

 

It just goes to show that entertainment isn't the only job where this is a problem.

 

Bob