ALT-1 Driving Safety
DWT, Driving While Tired. It's not an offense that we can be prosecuted for like driving while intoxicated, but it's very similar in it's effects. If you drive when you are over-tired, it slows your reaction time in case of emergencies. You can start to doze off, and even swerve in and out of traffic, similar to a person who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. This creates an extremely dangerous situation for you and everyone else on the road. Since nobody wants to be the cause of a severe traffic accident, it is best to stay off the road when you are overly tired. Find a way that you will not have to drive, whether it is calling someone to come pick you up, staying in a nearby hotel room, or sleeping for an hour or so in the car, don't drive when you are too tired.
Driving when you are tired creates problems for you and everyone on the road with you. At best, you are going to be slower reacting to emergency vehicles and situations. At worst, you can cause injurious traffic accidents, involving yourself or others. Either way, it's not a pleasant situation. Here are just a few examples of things that have happened because people have fallen asleep behind the wheel of a car. All of these situations have really happened, and only serve to demonstrate what can happen if you are too tired to drive. Two of these stories have happy endings, but not the third, and even that situation could have been worse if others were involved.
In the first situation, we have a man who was out late at night, while his wife and children were home waiting for him. He was late, but his wife wasn't too worried as he was late often. This night, however, he was even later than usual, and she was starting to worry about him. Upon his arrival home, she found out that on his way home, he had fallen asleep behind the wheel and had to take a sobriety test because of it. He was little more than shaken up by the incident, but matters could have been much worse.
In the second situation, there was a woman on her way to work. She had not gotten nearly enough sleep the previous night. She fell asleep only to be awakened moments later by the tires scraping against the center divider on the freeway. Scared awake, she finishes her drive to work, but has to change to the spare tire on her way because the rim of the tire that was on the car is so mangled that she can't drive on it properly. She was ok, and because the freeway was nearly empty that day, nobody got hurt, but she never drove when she was too tired again.
The third story does not have such a happy ending. This is about a young man with a promising future. He was a senior in high school, very good-looking, and very popular. He was a wonderful person with a good heart. He was driving home one night from seeing some friends who lived about 30 miles away. He also fell asleep behind the wheel. His car drove off a steep cliff, and he did not survive the accident. This represents close to the worst that can happen if you are driving when you are too tired to drive. The only thing that could have been worse would be if he had taken someone else with him.
If you are too tired to drive, don't drive. Get some sleep, take a cab, or call someone responsible to come and pick you up. This is the safest option for you and for everyone else on the road.
