The 10 worst ways to stay awake at the wheel
The thought of falling asleep at the wheel is enough to frighten anyone, but sadly many of us can think of journeys when, in retrospect, we were too tired to be driving safely. Drowsiness can affect our performance at the wheel long before we actually fall asleep, by dulling our reactions and reducing our concentration. Many accidents, injuries and motor insurance claims could be avoided if we took sensible precautions before and during long journeys. However, for every sensible precaution you can take against driver tiredness and falling asleep at the wheel, there are dozens of really quite misguided alternatives. Awake, a British research group which has prepared tiredness-related studies for the police and the Department for Transport, among others, has compiled a top ten of the worst possible ways to combat fatigue whilst driving. What follows is their list, along with the occasional observation or anecdote from one of our online car insurance experts here at Hoot. 10. Shake your head
Most of us have tried this method at one time or another in an effort to beat drowsiness - the idea being to somehow 'stir-up' our brains and prevent the onset of sleep.
If you're sat in a boring meeting or lecture, or nodding off on the train on your way to work, shaking your head about will look pretty silly and do very little to help you stay awake - but beyond frying a couple of brain cells it won't actually do any harm. Try it when driving a car, however, and you're in for quite a different story. Jiggling your head here will impair your vision and make it difficult to steer straight, quite possibly leading to a swerve or a crash. 9. Adjust your seat
Some drivers admit to having deliberately misadjusted their seats to try and keep themselves awake.
Making yourself uncomfortable does make it harder to fall asleep (try catching 40 winks in an airport check-in lounge and you'll see what we mean), but it also makes it harder to drive well. The discomfort will distract you from the job at hand (i.e. driving), and ruin your reaction time in the face of an approaching hazard. Also, carry on like this for too long and you'll end up with a trapped nerve or crick in your neck that could force you to pull over. 8. Drive faster
This is an extremely dangerous idea. The 'thinking' behind it is that driving faster than the speed you're normally comfortable with forces your brain to panic a little, preventing the onset of sleep.
However, there's a good reason for not feeling comfortable when you're driving too fast - it's because you can't keep effective control of your vehicle. Add to this the slower reaction times and general grogginess of sleep deprivation and disaster is practically guaranteed. 7. Take your shoes off
It's not illegal (as many imagine it to be), but that doesn't mean driving barefoot is a good way to ward off drowsiness at the wheel.
Under normal circumstances, taking your shoes off is thought to give more precise control over acceleration and breaking, with the trade-off that you're more reluctant to stamp down on the pedals (for fear of sharp stones or fragments of glass) in an emergency. Most motoring groups therefore condemn the practice as dangerous, but some driving instructors actually recommend it as a way of teaching better clutch control. If you're dog-tired however, and unused to driving barefoot, the strange feeling will more likely hamper your driving skills than it will improve them. 6. Suck lemons
It's an excellent way to drink tequila (not before driving, mind), but gnawing on lemons is another bad idea if you're struggling to keep your eyes open on the motorway.
The bitterness and acidity may have the kind of punch to them that could bring someone back from the brink of slumber, but what's most concerning about the lemons method is the amount of preparation involved. Short of carrying the fruit pre-sliced (and anyone with this kind of foresight surely has the good sense not to drive tired) there's a worrying amount of chopping involved, and the potential for squirting juice in your eye. No fully-awake person can play driver and cocktail waiter at the same time - so don't try it when you're half-asleep. 5. Torture yourself
The example here is a man who said he'd pressed drawing pins into his wrist and held them in place with an elastic band, but we're referring to all forms of self-inflicted pain (i.e. pinching, slapping, flagellation, et cetera).
In the world outside your car, deliberately hurting yourself to feel 'more awake' or 'more in control' is referred to as self-harming. At the wheel, doing so might jerk you out of slumber - but the pain is a powerful distraction that'll make it much harder to focus on the road ahead. 4. Stand up
Not a practical solution for most car drivers, but some truckers confess to standing up in their cabs in a bid to beat sleepiness.
However, few if any vehicles were designed to be driven whilst standing - headroom permitting or not. Anyone who believes they can drive safely in such a pose shouldn't be on the roads in any state. 3. Talk to yourself
One of the surveyed drivers said he recounted out loud and at full volume the events of past relationships, going though every detail from first meeting to eventual break-up.
Going back over old ground like this is not only heartbreaking in most cases, it is deeply distracting. A workout for your memory may stop you falling asleep, but thinking of past lovers can have a similarly detrimental effect on your abilities as a driver. 2. Do two things at once
One of the most outrageous responses came from a man who confessed to setting himself various challenges at the wheel so as to stay awake. Among others, these included making hot drinks and then drinking them.
Much like the 'suck lemons' entry above, attempting to engage your brain with challenges whilst still continuing to drive is one of the worst possible ideas for dealing with drowsiness. Multitasking at such a time just puts another drain on your already weakened powers of concentration. 1. Use your sunroof
Possibly the most ingenious and yet the most misguided method for dealing with the onset of sleep was submitted by a lady who claimed she had clamped the ends of her hair in her car sunroof, hoping that the pain caused if she nodded-off would jerk her back awake.
While the resourcefulness of such a plan is to be admired, to keep going at the stage when your head is about to slump forward is sheer madness. Sleep-deprived drivers are in danger long before their heads drop - and long before stringing yourself up by your pigtails seems like a good idea. Get a quote from the online car insurance experts
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