Night driving issues, sleepiness

And not the whole conversation has been consumed by energy drinks?
I got lost somewhere along the way.

I have my coffee in the morning, with a little sugar and milk. That gets me by until around noon when I get a small snack, which holds me until I can make a good dinner that night.
With this whole virus thing I finally got a coffee maker in the truck. I doubt I'll be getting truck stop coffee ever again. Those little pods are nice and clean, but I do need two of them to make it strong enough.

People that rely on energy drinks to keep them awake are pushing the edge, always.
And someday it will crash and burn.

 

Right now truckstops are not your friend, your certainly showing a little wisdom staying out of them. I try to fuel at CFN's and stay out of Loves and Pilots for now, the less people contact the better.

 

yes, and thank you. i totally forgot to mention that i had at the very least 4 water bottles as well. and during the winters? i'd take along at least a dozen water bottles, just in case of a breakdown, and the much longer wait times of road service.

 

Good health is the best way to take care of this, and God knows most of our industry is overweight at the least. I personally have never cared for the taste of coffee, so an energy drink (glorified soda) spread out gives me a nice even boost. I can go without them, but after a few days I get a little irritable.

 

That was the hardest part for me too until I got a co-driver. Now I just have him wake me up at 5 am and I drive to 5 pm because I don’t like to drive at night either. Killed two birds with one stone. Works really well if you can find a driver that will work with you and drive the same hours everyday.

 

I have read most of these comments, I find some to be interesting. As I have repeated now ad nauseam in these boards I have epilepsy. The very word epilepsy comes from both the Greek and Latin words for seize and seizure. One form of these seizures I have plays tricks with my awareness and at times I can't tell if I am having a "dream" or something is real. I have actually sat at my mother's table eating her homemade biscuits and gravy and that taste is so real I can still taste after I come out of that seizure.

I bring up that issue to make it CLEAR that the borderline between being awake and fully aware and being in that semi dreamlike state can be (VERY) thin at times. When the human body gets exhausted it will start the process of going to sleep, YOU CAN"T stop it. Yes, you can drink energy drinks and things like coffee, you can also get out and run around the truck several times. All you are doing is delaying the inevitable. There is NO substitute for sleep. NONE! You stay up for 24 hours and you might prolong the "crash" for a few hours, but that is all you are doing. I am OK with drinking coffee and consuming energy drinks. I did when I drove. The thing is, there will come a point when they will no longer work. Most of the time you will not see you have crossed that thin border and are actually starting to go to sleep. A few years before I retired I had this happen to me in all places on the DC beltway about 4AM. I was bobtail on my way to pick up a repower in Baltimore. When my tandems started shaking after hitting some bumps I woke up. I swore that day to never do that again. I'm not kidding about these sleep levels. Again let me make this clear. Once the human body starts going to sleep you can't stop it, you may delay it for a short while, but you can NOT stop it.

 

I carry energy drinks too, but mostly because they are ready-to-go drinks, while coffee needs to be prepared (or picked up at the truck stop). The major downside to energy drinks is their cost compared to coffee that you can make inside your truck for very cheap. Using instant coffee or a traditional coffee maker (not the k-cup machine), you can make a cup of coffee for under 25 cents, while energy drinks will be much higher than that even if you buy them in a pack.

Also, coffee is like pizza in that you need to find the “good stuff.” Not all coffee is created equal just like not all pizzas will taste the same. You need to find the type of coffee that you like. For me, generally, coffee is good if you can drink it without adding anything and it tastes smooth. I do add one teaspoon of sugar and creamer to my coffee.

 

I call some coffee "farm water run off" the crap taste horrible but it'll crank you up