Night driving issues, sleepiness

For someone like me though, I have to be in control. Even if I know someone is probably the safest driver in the universe, there’s just something about trying to sleep in the bunk while someone else is driving. I just can’t relax. So that definitely would not be for me. I only fully trust myself. LOL

 

Reefer is the notorious one for Shakey sleep shifts. The biggest thing is find companies don't haul product that load at night and have your dispatcher know you don't flip schedules

 

Don't take what I am about to say as a negative response. That was a great post.



All that is a long winded way of saying...
Don't drive past your limits.
Not the limits you 'want to' set for yourself, but the the limits your body actually sets for you.

 

When I was a fairly new driver I had to take a stand.

I delivered my load at 1300, and the next pplan had me picking up at 0100 that next morning.
I turned it down saying that I could not get enough sleep.
I was called by my DM to say that I had the required 10 hour break and I should be ready to work by then.
Sorry... no.

I do not work 'on demand'!
Regulations may state what rest periods I HAVE to take, but they do not control what I WILL take to be safe out here.
Neither does the company I work for.

This is simply a job to me. I will work long hours when I need to, but I will get my time between shifts to be properly rested and relaxed.
To do otherwise puts me and everyone around me at risk.

 

If that is how you want to look at it I am OK with that. I don't think it was a rehash of things we already know. What I attempted to do is summarize what I have learned about consciousness and sleep. Someone driving on I 10 between Benson and Tucson at 3AM MST might well start to let their mind wander. Just this act of not controlling the mind is not being fully conscious. You think you are fully awake, but in reality, you are not. One of my neurologists (the one that actually diagnosed my epilepsy) gave me a great handout on this subject. It is a fascinating subject to me and I have done a lot of internet research on it.

I will again try to hammer THIS POINT HOME! That line between consciousness and sleep is very fine and the average person does not know they have crossed it. Once crossed, you are as a trucker just an accident/incident waiting for a place to happen.

I also know I am opening myself up to being called all sorts of names. I am also going to reveal something on these boards I have never said openly. I won't say the year, but the last time I operated a motor vehicle was one morning in Virginia Beach. I foolishly was driving knowing I should not have. While on a back street I ran a stop sign and caused an accident that totaled both vehicles. To this day I don't remember that accident. All I remember was walking on the beach and then sitting in my vehicle. I was cited for running that stop sign and about 2 weeks later was forced to surrender my driver's license. I bring this up only to say a driver MUST be fully conscious. If you have to use things like coffee etc to stay "awake" you are no longer conscious. You have slipped into the beginning stages of sleep. This is also why having sleep apnea is so dang dangerous. (true OSA) not some of this BS that is being called OSA so MEs, sleep lab operators and CPAP makers and merchants can make a quick buck. You think you are fully awake and conscious, but you are not. then add in boredom and you got problems.

If this is long-winded, so be it. I do think it needs to be said. When it comes to this job and staying alert and fully conscious, there is NO SHORTCUTs to sleep.

 

I have gone to sleep and recognized same with eyes open and truck at speed. A couple of times.

The situation leaves reality behind and becomes a dreamworld that does not make sense. I latch onto that problem and work it. Most of the time I managed to get that flying dutchman stopped then parked.

I managed to get into Bruces in Bakersfield one afternoon after about 2000 miles straight through. Sacremento was still waiting on me, but they would just have to wait. Took 16 hours of sleep plus two hours of a royal meal to cure that problem which had by then gotten extremely dangerous. To this day Im pretty sure I did not hit anyone that last 200 miles. Normally it would be fine to endurance that far but that week was preceeded by a series of loads that built up a rest bill that needed paying.

I have a dear friend in the state school from childhood in the same situation, he was prone to seizures from Menningitis. Now I was immune and not a problem but the last time it was a problem (The second to last time actually, he had several episodes that year) was at dinner. One moment hes working on the dinner plate and food and the next minute eyes were gone, his CNS had gone haywire and gravity was taking hold as the fork escaped him.

That one was one of his worst, I had seen some before that time but that time he needed to rest up the rest of the day, forget the dinner and school work.

I don't think they ever found the cure for what he had in him at the brain. Best they can hope for is to keep it contained until its not. Our lives took two seperate paths after graduation and I hope hes done well wherever he is.

But sometimes I wonder.

One must wonder sometimes what with the seizures situation and all.

 

You could find on the road by 4 in the morning. But I sleep every night. No BS shifting between day and night driving.

 

Considering the last 30 miles is downhill from Tehachapi, could have ended quite badly. Thats my hill drive 6 times a night now. Bruces is a big empty parking lot, buildings ,scale, and lizard are now gone. 24/7 across the street and a independent goes by Speedway on the otherside of the freeway. Santa Claus is even long gone.

 

Yes agreed, and ty for the update. I have been gone a while.

That hill you speak of is one of my favorites to run. And yes it would have been something else on that last drop. There are not too many favorite mountains to run in the USA, that would be one of them.

 

Its even a great hill on the bikes, a little boring for the shuttles, but thats life as they say