Falling asleep at the wheel: Far more cases than reported, says accident prevention doc

[PETERTHEEATER]

5 hours ago, DezLez said:

I nearly dozed off reading it!

Try moving your bookholder to the centre of your vehicle's  console.....

[DefaultName]

I believe this, used to be a taxi driver, lived about 20 miles from where I worked.  Keeping awake when the work was coming was easy, but when it finished, driving home on unlit country roads wasn't.  Sometimes I had to find a layby and doze for a few minutes before continuing.  At times I got home and couldn't remember the journey.

Thai drivers do a lot more hours than I did, so they'll be worse affected - though "face" will stop them admitting it.

[wealthychef]

9 hours ago, webfact said:

there are signs up all over the kingdom on main roads warning people to take rests if they are drowsy.

No effort to give the workers relief from long hours in the factory and terrible conditions, just tell them to pull over.  Gotta love modern corporate owned governments that brutalize their citizens for profit.  

[pedro01]

Happened to me first time this week. Fell asleep at traffic lights, scared the poop out of me.

 

Pulled into a 7-11 car park, had 30 mins sleep, then proceeded the next 5km home.

[RedDevil7]

"Signs are persistent yawning, eyes tending to close"

 

No Sh*t Sherlock!!!

[rickudon]

I had a nasty accident due to Microsleep. I arrived back in UK after a Holiday and car MOT had run out (it was at my parents, near airport) - Turned out not worth repairing so took train home to Birmingham and bought another car a few days later. I had left some of my luggage behind at parents, so drove down in the new car to collect it, them drove back overnight. On the M6, 15 miles from home, got sleepy. felt the tyres go bump bump on the cats eyes at the edge of the lane, so turned the steering wheel to the right - car swerved off at an angle of 30 plus degrees, and rolled over 3 times when i tried to correct it ...... why? The new car had power steering and my usual turn on the wheel was too positive.

 

I was lucky, crawled out of the wreck with only 2 broken hands. When i saw the car the next day, the entire roof had collapsed apart from over the drivers seat. My head had ended up just a couple of inches from the roof - good job i am only 5 foot 6 inches!

 

I never drove solo on the motorways at night again if i could help it.

[kcpattaya]

16 hours ago, DezLez said:

I nearly dozed off reading it!

Quality, that is... ????

[Road Warrior]

or caused by BOOZE ?????

[Jimjim1]

On 4/20/2022 at 7:51 AM, ezzra said:

And how did the good doctor came to this conclusion? did he had a study or experiments done to determent that this is the cause of most road accidents? did he differentiate between ordinary drivers or those on long hauls?...

It all adds up to nothing really because when you say to a Thai that you have a long drive ahead of you the first thing they say is drink strong coffee or two bottles of that very high caffeine drink, not one of them says remember to stop for a 10 minute rest every two hours, it’s a thought that never crosses their mind.

So the doctor is on to something but even killing themselves does not educate those left behind.

 

I well remember a story about a taxi driver who had almost finished his day long stint at swampy when he picked up a fair who wanted to go to a destination in the north, so instead of passing it on to a fresh driver and taking a commission he opted to do it himself, He delivered the fair to his destination and the driver immediately returned to his home in Autthaya but just two kilometres from home he fell asleep and died, he had been driving non stop for over 30 hours.

He left a wife and two children

 

[smiggley]

The problem is if you toot your horn at a Thai they may take offense and then anything can happen.