Team-BHP - Drowsiness & Sleepy Driving: The silent killer on Indian roads

My god. Almost the exact same thing that happened in my case. I am deeply sorry to hear your incident.

The only difference was I was in a fiesta with seatbelt, ABS, airbags (though the impact wasn’t strong enough to deploy them thank God) and a heavy, well built car.

If I was in my Amaze maybe the seatbelts would have saved me planting my face in the windshield but the car would have likely been totaled with a broken axle or other damage.

And the narrow Amaze seats with limited neck support would have made my twenty year old whiplash far worse rather than the minor pain in the neck that I got in the deep and well padded seats with good lumbar and neck support.

In a basic Swift packed with four adults and two kids with most passengers not belted in..if any blame attaches it is to car manufacturers for making unsafe cars that cause fatalities in relatively minor crashes and the general lack of awareness about using belts for all sitting in the car.

People only started using driver seatbelts after police action - maybe the govt needs to take it to the next phase and enforce safety norms for cars, start ticketing people unless everybody in the car is wearing seatbelts.

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Originally Posted by hserus (Post 4279696)

My god. Almost the exact same thing that happened in my case. I am deeply sorry to hear your incident.

The only difference was I was in a fiesta with seatbelt, ABS, airbags (though the impact wasn’t strong enough to deploy them thank God) and a heavy, well built car.

.....

People only started using driver seatbelts after police action - maybe the govt needs to take it to the next phase and enforce safety norms for cars, start ticketing people unless everybody in the car is wearing seatbelts.

I have always sworn by the seat-belt, as a precaution.

But ever since this accident occurred, I have come to value ABS and airbags - even though the airbags may not fire at all when needed. Or God help me if my car to be bought in the near future in India has Takata airbags! But I still absolutely want airbags.

Police action is the only way to enforce these things. As more people own cars or take rides in them, they learn by observing the results of their apathy toward safety and we will reach a point where these things will become second nature for the people.

A friend of mine put it very succinctly once - Most Indians are just one or two generations removed from poverty and there's still a high chance that the average people you see on the road are still poor. Most people still don't have the luxury of shelter where they can wipe their behinds. Do you think they would know enough to care about safety? If jumping that red signal gets me to my destination quicker, that's all I care about as the typical Indian. If a base model of a car comes cheap without airbags, that's what I'll get as the typical Indian as I would be stretching my budget anyways by buying a car...

It looks like I will be driving on wednesday from Chennai to Thrissur. The idea is to start at 4AM and be home by 2PM. It is 650KMs one way. While this is a route I have done multiple times before, this time I'm doing it solo. Would taking a different route (one that I haven't been on before) help to break the monotony? I have also been diagnosed with diabetes recently and am currently on medication but nothing that makes me drowsy.

I would suggest you to take frequent breaks. 5 min stretch breaks every hour / 2hrs and a 15 min sleep break in the middle of the journey should help.

On another note, in my recent Trivandrum - Bangalore trip, I was feeling unusually tired. I drove sedately and took multiple sleep, snack and stretch breaks. The real cause revealed itself after 3 days of reaching back; a bout of Dengue fever :-(

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Originally Posted by ike (Post 4311824)

I find that having a good night's rest is very very important. Only times I have felt drowsy is when I slept late and still decided to start early next morning. I don't do that anymore. I have done over 900kms round trips within 24hrs and not felt drowsy because I had a good night's sleep before the trip.
If you haven't felt drowsy during other journeys then it shouldn't be a problem. on this trip. I prefer to listen to music or radio during such solo journeys. That is usually more than enough for me.

Forbes says:

Quote:

The percentage of crashes involving drowsiness on U.S. roads is nearly eight times higher than federal estimates indicate, according to a report released earlier this month by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety that examined video of drivers’ faces in the three minutes leading up to a crash.

And I agree 100%. Unlike drunk driving, it's very hard to nail down the cause of an accident if it was due to sleepiness. Maybe the driver himself would try to hide the fact or he wouldn't live to tell the story. Drowsy driving is definitely causing a lot more accidents than the actual stats reveal.

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Originally Posted by easyrider (Post 4459806)

Can drowsiness be caused by air conditioning running continuously (in a long drive) resulting in carbon dioxide buildup? Especially, if air is not being circulated from outside when recirculate button is on.

conflicting opinions,
https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-...hould-I-use-it

https://www.co2meter.com/blogs/news/...ls-in-your-car

I will check the links you gave, but to be on the safer side, I keep on flipping between re-circulation and fresh air mode every half an hour or 45 mins. This ensures that oxygen levels are maintained in the cabin. While high levels of CO do cause drowsiness which can be dangerous while driving and otherwise.
So, better to be safe than sorry. :)

Regards,
Saket

Quote:

Originally Posted by easyrider (Post 4459806)

Quote:

Originally Posted by saket77 (Post 4459828)

... on the safer side, I keep on flipping between re-circulation and fresh air mode every half an hour or 45 mins.

In MB cars and SUVs if you have pressed the re-circulation mode, it automatically reverts to fresh air mode after some time. Maybe 15 minutes or so.
Although i believe even in re-circulation mode, 20% of fresh air comes in and 80% is re-circulated. May differ in different cars.

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Originally Posted by earthian (Post 4459857)

There must be a reason why MB has done that. Not sure what kind of research has been done on accidents that may have been caused by CO2/CO induced drowsiness. mostly attributed to sleeplessness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by easyrider (Post 4459806)

side questions:
a. How long can one drive before one feels like taking a break? Except for giants like HVK - I definitely need a break to stretch my legs ever 3-4 hours, if nothing else, even if I'm doing a 500-700km run.
b. There's pee / poo / food / chai / cigarette breaks for most of us.
c. So far, there's the break where one pays toll, or shouts at the operator for letting cash cars in the Fastag lane :)

I can only quote my n=1 experience across multiple loong trips (whether 650km kerala-chennai, manali-gurgaon, or gurgaon-lucknow, or jaipur-mumbai type runs) with AC in 100% recirculation mode. Whenever I've felt sleepy - it has promptly been addressed with substantial doses of caffeine. Every single time. Since I carry enough caffeine for a small army unit in my car, I don't even need to slow down for it. Hence, I personally doubt this CO2 theory and will continue to do so.

Of course, since my unfit physiology is no way remarkably different from anyone else, I would hazard (n=1) that there's enough things to worry about on Indian roads and CO2 buildup in cars on long drives isnt one of them.

Worst case - set geographical proximity or simple alarms that force you to take a break. But don't overthink this - our highways are painful enough to drive on with all the chaos they feature :)