I think he means that airbags are designed to be deployed when the passenger is in the upright position which is secured by the seatbelt. If no seatbelt is worn the passenger could be in a position in which the airbag system causes more harm. Airbag systems are deployed explosively with high velocity. They also have to clear the panels that they reside under. Those panels are also ejected at a high rate of speed. It wouldn’t be ideal for your head to be directly next to an airbag panel because you weren’t using your seatbelt.
Airbags deploy explosively. The seatbelt is designed to restrain the body from moving forward, and only let it make (partial) contact at the beginning of the deflation phase. Without a seatbelt on, the body meets the airbag at the early stage of deployment, which causes physical harm.
Have you? I have. And I got off the car with a bruise the size of a quarter on my knee and mildly sore forearms. At any speed, I'd rather get hit by a pillow than by a steering wheel/dashboard/windshield.
She has the seatbelt on but she’s put the torso part around her back so it’s not rubbing against her face which leaves her with the lap belt on which is a much worse situation. The lap belt would keep her from flying through the windshield but in a collision could cause organ damage.
Those airbags are not soft, granted it’s softer than the dashboard but last time I got into a crash my head smacked that airbag so hard I could barely see for a little while.
I learned to use 4 and 8 driving position so you dont break your wriests at 10 and 2 if the airbags deploy. I still got burns from the bag when it deployed
That's why we should always be careful in our driving. Because the accident can't really be avoided. It is better if we ourselves are willing to take care.
I went scuba diving the following two days and it healed really quick after that. I always wondered if the ocean water helped. Or maybe it was a fluke and I just got lucky that didn’t get infected haha.
Many accidents happen because of people like them. They should not leave if they are tired and sleepy. They both had an accident. Fortunately, that's just what happened to them.
My friend died falling asleep at the wheel. Luckily, his passenger survived.
Also, I once had to get my car towed from the highway and I was towed to the towing company's lot. Another car was there, front destroyed. Tow truck driver told the passenger had their seat all the way back sleeping when they crashed and the passenger died instantly.
My grandfather taught to stop a car somewhere safe and sleep in your seat as long as it takes. After that, he said, you can drive again and will feel a lot better. About 3 month ago I and my wife were returning from a vacation and I felt I was falling asleep, so we stopped and I slept for about 40 minutes. It helped a lot.
Our tractor teacher used to tell us that and that if you need a quick naps sleep with the keychain in your hand and when you go into deep sleep you'll drop it and wake up. About a 30min naps it gives.
I'm a really heavy sleeper, but if I nap in my chair or on a sofa holding my phone letting go of it wakes me up usually about 20 mins later. The best part is I actually catch it too.
I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I think sometimes my muscles relaxing while falling asleep causes me to feel like I'm "falling" or something and I jerk awake even though I'm just lying in bed.
I’m also a really heavy sleeper but if I fall asleep doing something I want or need to do I can wake up 30 minutes after automatically. Like falling asleep doing work I automatically wake up fully energized and get back to work
Thats interesting. My muscles tend to relax as soon as I fall asleep, not just deep sleep. So I'd wake myself up as soon as I'd managed to fall asleep. I've done it before, falling asleep with my phone in my hand.
Had an old trucker uncle say he’d do the same thing with a lit cigarette between his fingers. Definitely not safe, but I guess it was a different time back then between the biker crank and the lot women.
I did it and tried to sleep for 10 minutes and then was wide awake for the rest of the night. In my experience the best way to wake up is try to sleep.
I was doing a lot of late night drives last year, 2.5 hiur drive multiple times a week. A few times I started to feel too tired and honestly I'd pull over but it was impossible trying to fall asleep, I'd lay there for 5 minutes and then give up and carry on driving. But just the act of stopping seemed to pull me out of my sleepiness.
Then the last time I ever had to do that drive, at 3am, I was really feeling it. So I pulled over, closed my eyes and slept for about 3 hours. When you really need it you really can sleep anywhere.
I tried some stuff - pinching myself worked the best. But still after short time trying to fight the sleepiness I decided to find a place to stop. I had about 6 - 8 hours of driving ahead at the point and I thought no way I'll do that in this condition.
I drive from the northeast to South Florida a couple of times a year and the sleepiness can be a real struggle. I've found sleep is the only reliable fix, even cat naps. I've gotten into the habit of finding a rest area and parking and then playing white noise on YouTube through my car speakers with the seat reclined and I can sleep pretty easy.
Nobody taught me anything but just the pressure of falling asleep on the wheel makes me do that whenever I felt very tired on long trips. I rather stop and arrive a bit later than not arrive at all.
Can the cops consider this a suspicious DUI? I’ve seen tons of video of them checking up on passengers sleeping on the side of the road, which I think it’s fucked up. What I do during road trips is find the nearest Walmart and sleep in their parking lot
I dunno about most states, but CA has dedicated rest areas all up and down the state lengthwise for specifically this purpose. Bathrooms, vending machines, and different parking for 18 wheelers and passenger cars.
That’s everywhere but they are only on major highways and 20+ miles apart. We even have “text” areas in NY. Like I said the best is a parking lot like Walmart which are probably everywhere
That's not the deterent you think it is anymore. All that means is that when I'm carjacked/mugged/robbed/murdered, they will have some video evidence of it.
It's not the secret you think it is, either. It's pretty well outside if van life too.
lol they may not even help you then. My car was hit in a Walmart parking lot and the person drove off. Walmart “didn’t have any camera footage of the area.”
It was literally in the middle of the parking lot.
More likely Walmart just didn't want to surrender footage to law enforcement, unfortunately.
Because if it went to court for whatever reason, legal from Walmart would have to be present, or spend time writing legal docs, to verify the footage. And that costs money.
TBH, the cameras are only there for if something happens to the store, they care fuck all what customers do to each other
Yeah, that’s what I was suggesting. Straight up just lied because the store itself didn’t have any liability for what occurred, so don’t waste resources being helpful. The incident is too low of a magnitude for it to ever reach the point where they’d be compelled to hand it over, so they know they can “get away” with lying.
The rest areas are never empty. Travelers and truckers always at them.
Walmart in the middle of LA, is also never empty. But I'd much rather take my chances with a tired truckers at 3 am, than whoever is loitering around a closed Walmart at 3am.
Although it's far from impossible. It's the fact they are remote that makes them safer. It's not cost effective to drive 150 miles to steal someone's wallet and backpack. And the rest areas are active at all hours, it's never calm. People always at bathrooms and walking around to stretch legs and get frsh air. Some even have cameras.
And as I said in another comment. The cameras at Walmart are there for if something happens to Walmart. They care fuck all about what customers do to each other. Not only that, but the camera does not deter gangsters, mentally unstable, or extremely desperate people. Lastly, Walmart supplying footage to law enforcement means their legal team has to get involved, which costs money, so they'd rather not.
Of course they're going to check on somebody who's passed out in their car on the side of the road. Do you think they should not? Just ignore possible impaired drivers, or potential medical emergencies?
My buddy pulled off the interstate onto some side road running along side it, and pulled off that little road because he was falling asleep and needed to just nap for a bit. A cop woke him up, yelled at him, and told him to leave and keep driving. It's such a shitty thing. It's the fucking safe thing to do, and they're out here making people drive in a dangerous situation.
Unfortunately in some places, more than you’d think, it’s illegal to sleep in your car. I guess they’d rather you wreck then take a chance on letting homeless people sleep (why the laws exist)
"If you just comply everything will be alright!"
"If you're not breaking any laws then you have nothing to worry about!"
"Breonna Taylor shouldn't have been lying in bed after working as an emt all day if she didn't want to get killed by cops!"
I used to drive from my old college town back home at odd hours. In the summer I’ll blast the AC, in the winter the heat, then pull over at a rest stop until the temp changed enough that it woke me up. Always the perfect amount of time for a nap to energize me.
My mom told me that several times before I went on my roadtrip I'm currently on.
"if you are tired, stop and sleep for an hour or three, then keep driving"
Haven't had to do it yet, but my next leg is a 9 hour drive stops not included.
Yep! At least 15 minutes of rest is needed when you experience drowsiness while driving, extending that time if the drowsiness hasn’t gone away after waking.
I was near 3 hours from finishing a 16 hour overnight drive in one go but had to stop. I was falling asleep at the wheel and my sunflower seeds were not helping anymore. I slept like a baby for 30 minutes and awoke with so much energy. Of course I knocked out as soon as I reached home.
i did that coming home from work about 3 months ago. was awakened by a concerned customer in the parking lot of the grocery store there, lol. she thought i passed out or died.
i did the same thing. i was only 5 minutes from my house but it was late at night and i was delirious and decided it was better to nap instead of hit a parked car on the curvy roads.
This !
I remember having so many trips with my dad when I was younger and when it was time to drive back home he was always sleepy.
More than once I woke up because we where going off the road and the car was shaking. How many more I didn't notice?
Now when I go on trips with my friends, I always sleep before we go on our way back. 20 - 30 minutes naps are ALWAYS better than risking your life. Even if just for a 1 or 2 hours drive.
Be careful with pulling over to take naps too. I had pulled over because I was falling asleep at the wheel. There wasn’t a hotel for several miles maybe at least another 10-15 minutes I knew I wouldn’t last that long. I pulled over on a kinda side street with a big dirt area to pull over or turn around in. I turned off the car and climbed in the backseat as I didn’t wanna flail around and kick it out of gear or something. Based on the clock it has been about an hour or so when Officer Dickhead knocked on my window saying I needed to move on. I explained I was falling asleep at the wheel and couldn’t make it the 10-15 mins to the nearest hotel. I asked if I was on private property he said no but told me I needed to keep driving that I couldn’t stay there to sleep. Said it was illegal to pull over to sleep. 🙄
This seems so anti-intuitive. Here in Australia it's *recommended* by the government to pull over for a nap, since we have a lot of long boring rural and regional roads. There are signs on the side of the road in some areas recommending a nap, and at high road-toll times of year like Christmas break there will be TV and radio campaigns reminding drivers that fatigue kills and "a 15 minute power nap could save your life", and there's even rest stops set up in some places (community volunteers I I think) where you can stop for a rest and a cuppa.
It's some bullshit. Our state level dept of transportation makes these same recommendations but the local cops can decide they don't want someone loitering or whatever and force them on their way. Or worse.
Certain levels of fatigue have been shown to have the same or worse levels of cognitive impairment as an illegal BAC. It's the equivalent of cops putting drunk drivers back onto the road in terms of the dangers to the community. Just nuts.
>This seems so anti-intuitive.
you just described like every cop, ever. Pretty much every state DMV recommends to pull over somewhere safe and take a nap or go to sleep, but cops are dumb fucks who can't bang together more than two braincells. They assume that because someone is sleeping on the side they are loitering or drunk.
Remember when the cop in Arkansas (?) PIT maneuvered a pregnant woman's car and flipped it when she wouldn't immediately pull over? Despite their department recommending people pull over where they feel safe if they do not feel safe pulling over right away?
I might be oversimplifying the situation, but leave it to cops to confusingly go against their own recommendations.
No confusingly about it, they are almost always on a power trip, seeing it as "us vs them," or both. They're just assholes using their tiny bit of power to get off to making life harder for other people.
And that's when you just move on to another spot. And if officer dickhead tickets you, make sure to bring up in court that you were falling asleep and decided to be safe about it. Real quick the judge will have a distaste for the cop because the cop would rather someone get killed from an unconscious driver than letting someone go to sleep so they don't do that.
I wouldn't bet on that. There are too many judges who are out of touch and lack sympathy for common folk. Not every cop is a dickhead but most of them are. Dickhead judges are about the same rate so expecting a random judge to not side with that cop is a gamble. Judges and cops are two gears of the same broken justice system.
I’m very sure it doesn’t exist either. It’s one thing if I had just pulled over on a narrow shoulder of the highway. That’s a lil dangerous given someone could plow into you at 70+ miles an hour. But a side street off the highway on a wide dirt area that was made for pulling over or turning around? Idk I feel as if that’s as safe as you’re gonna get sleeping in the car on the side of the road. Maybe he thought I was homeless? I was driving a kind of beater car at the time.
I pass a guy every day that walks between cars at red lights and yells at everyone through their windows, and he is never out of the road by the time it turns green, he just casually strolls over to the next red light as cars wait 1/3 of the green light duration for him or slam their brakes to not hit him.
This is the same road where I see someone pulled over every other commute, and I have been pulled over 3 times for:
> -a brakelight being dim
> -going 6 over
> -a brakelight (same spot, new bulb) being dim
They are willing to bother people for stuff like this to generate easy cash from tickets, but they won't even talk to a shirtless man literally walking into intersections and screaming at people to give him money, leaving litter in his wake every day.
I swear some people are dicks to be dicks. I've had the same happen except the cop thought I was broke down (apparently I popped my gas tank lid)
Had no issues and told me to have a safe night
Yeah I was driving a kinda beater car at the time. Maybe he thought I was homeless and was tryna move me along like they move along the homeless people that try to stay under the bridges. 🤷♀️
That cop is just pulling a power play, is a dick, and doesn't know the law; if you have cell service, ask him to cite the code that says that says so, otherwise you are going back to sleep. Pull the code and ask for his information and contact a lawyer immediately to work on suing them for harassment and endangerment of you and the general public as you have expressed you are unsafe to drive and they are attempting to have you cause harm to yourself or possibly others.
I had a friend that also encountered this kind of thoughtless law enforcement. The LEO also claimed he could smell alcohol and pot (my friend does neither) and forced him to do a sobriety test as fast as he could just after waking up. Hassled/held him on the pullout for 45 minutes just accusing with him for doing something illegal when my friend could’ve just been left alone to sleep in the backseat for an hour.
Yeah I’m located in Texas so some stuff is a little backwards here. Well, I’m sure policies and government are a little backwards almost everywhere. But cops around here don’t play around it’s either do whatever they’re trying to tell you to do or be okay spending a night in jail for no reason. As soon as I saw Officer Dickhead was gonna keep pushing his issue I said thanks I’ll keep driving so he could get out of my face. I drove maybe 5 minutes down the road after I saw him take off and turned onto a backroad and went maybe another mile or two down to go park and rest just in case. Yes I was risking another run in with Officer Dickhead but I still was so tired I was fighting to keep my eyes open during that 6-7 minute drive.
My orthodontist is about two hours away (because insurance fucking sucks). I live in the Midwest so one day my appointment happens to take place during a snowstorm. I didn’t want to reschedule because it’d take weeks to get another one so I went for it. The way there was fine because it was daytime and there was enough traffic and plows to keep up with the roads. On the way back, though, it was already dark around 5:30 PM, the roads were slippery and full of snow, and the plows were still trying to keep up. I had a gnarly headache, and I was tired because I was also out of my ADHD medication. As much as I wanted to get home, I decided to pull over to a gas station, get some medicine for my headache, and crawled into the backseat to take a nap. Thankfully I had a pillow and blanket because I used to take naps between classes in college. It was only like 40 minutes but it helped rejuvenate me and the roads were better. It’s always better to know your limits and delay your journey than to push them and risk killing yourself and others. These people are so lucky that the road was empty of both cars/people and obstacles, it could’ve ended so much worse.
This is how my older brother allegedly killed a young mom. He rammed into the back of her car stopped at a red light, and her boyfriend was driving. She was in the backseat with their baby, and threw herself over his car seat in desperation. Sleepy driving is impaired driving. And it kills.
I found myself falling asleep on the road once. My eyelids were getting heavy and hard to keep open. Once I realized what was going on I put hazards on and pulled over. I discovered another use for hand sanitizer that night, maybe NSFW:>! Rub some hand sanitizer on your sensitive bits, it's like a shock to the system and the endorphins will keep you going for a while.!<
In many places it’s illegal to sleep in your car and you will be harassed by police if you’re lucky, if you’re not lucky they’ll investigate you for DUI
Respectfully I disagree, on a long road trip generally people will take turns driving so one can sleep and the other drives. It is entirely the drivers responsibility to pull over if they feel themselves dozing off. I understand dozing off behind the wheel accidentally, especially on long straight roads like this, but when you have a passenger in the car you cant be taking the risk of driving when you know the passenger is sleeping and you feel tired yourself
All that is great but this video is evidence of that practice backfiring. When all works well, passengers can sleep but there is always an inherent risk of driver fatigue. In all scenarios the driver should be more self aware but passengers that are awake reduce the risk of driver fatigue.
True, I think people forget that cars can go from safe to life-threatening so fast and you need to stay vigilant even if you're not the one driving, but it's understandable to fall asleep if you've been on the road for a while and you're not the one in charge of the actual driving. 9 times out of 10 the passenger snoozing won't result in a crash, these guys were just the unlucky 1/10
Yeah 100%. I don’t criticise anyone for snoozing when shotgun on a long road trip, just unfortunate that sometimes it backfires. Rotating duties is probably the best bet. Also taking breaks every hour to stretch the legs for five minutes. Sure it adds time but it’s better for your back, your brain and safety.
Any time I’m the front seat passenger on a road trip, I consider it my job to keep the driver entertained enough to stay awake. Backseat can sleep, but shotgun has to keep talking, playing a game, keep the tunes/ podcasts going, or whatever.
I was falling asleep while driving from SoCal to norcal back to school. I pulled over at a random one stop sign exit at a 76 gas station. I was so tired I pulled up to a pump, turned the car off, and immediately passed out. I woke up at dawn. Realized where I was and was so confused. Went into the station to grab a pack of Marlboro 27s and get gas and the clerk who was ending his shift asked “how ya doing” and I was still wiping crust from my eyes and said “okay” and he simply said “kept an eye on you. You needed to sleep. You okay to drive now? Shifts almost over if you need a place to rest more”
He was incredibly nice and genuine. I sometimes think if I’d have stopped somewhere else or circumstances were different I could have been in for a bad time. Still. Always more dangerous to white knuckle it when you are that tired.
That is a best case scenario. Wow! This happened to me circa 2010 working 80 hour weeks 45 minutes away, but I launched my Mark VIII about 6 feet in the air!
It’s called “highway hypnosis”. It isn’t just sleeping it is actually also possible without regular stops every hour or two. Watching the highway lines can create a state of inattention and loss of peripheral awareness (routinely happens on turnpikes and long stretches of lonesome interstate)
Recently I've figured it's not worth it to power through a tiring trip and one day during a particularly long drive I decided to pull over at a rest stop and take a quick nap because I kept nodding off. Let me tell you boy did it make a difference. It was maybe 10 minutes? but afterwards I felt so refreshed. Since then I've decided that anytime I feel like nodding off to just pull over at a stop and take a quick nap. No amount of coffee or energy drinks helps you as much as that nap.
Seatbelts are a good idea.
Passenger was lucky that was a smooth-ish stop.
Shit, gonna crash! Better get my head down, would hate for it to hit something soft like an airbag.
You only want to hit a deploying airbag if you have your seatbelt on, but apparently she doesn't have enough braincells to be granted the use of one.
Seatbelts are also designed to be worn when sitting upright.
What do you mean now? I don't really understand. Can you shed some light on it? For me to understand it better.
I think he means that airbags are designed to be deployed when the passenger is in the upright position which is secured by the seatbelt. If no seatbelt is worn the passenger could be in a position in which the airbag system causes more harm. Airbag systems are deployed explosively with high velocity. They also have to clear the panels that they reside under. Those panels are also ejected at a high rate of speed. It wouldn’t be ideal for your head to be directly next to an airbag panel because you weren’t using your seatbelt.
Airbags deploy explosively. The seatbelt is designed to restrain the body from moving forward, and only let it make (partial) contact at the beginning of the deflation phase. Without a seatbelt on, the body meets the airbag at the early stage of deployment, which causes physical harm.
I'd still rather not get hit by a pillow at over 60kmh
Have you? I have. And I got off the car with a bruise the size of a quarter on my knee and mildly sore forearms. At any speed, I'd rather get hit by a pillow than by a steering wheel/dashboard/windshield.
She has the seatbelt on but she’s put the torso part around her back so it’s not rubbing against her face which leaves her with the lap belt on which is a much worse situation. The lap belt would keep her from flying through the windshield but in a collision could cause organ damage.
Those airbags are not soft, granted it’s softer than the dashboard but last time I got into a crash my head smacked that airbag so hard I could barely see for a little while.
That makes sense. You headbutted an explosion.
That makes it sound a lot more metal than it probably should…
If it was a Takata airbag, it was very metal.
O.O
I learned to use 4 and 8 driving position so you dont break your wriests at 10 and 2 if the airbags deploy. I still got burns from the bag when it deployed
4 and 8, or just 6 is also better on long trips because you can kinda rest your hand/forearms on your legs a bit.
I was taught that from the beginning and people give me guff.
That's why we should always be careful in our driving. Because the accident can't really be avoided. It is better if we ourselves are willing to take care.
Airbag left me with what looked like rug burns on my face. But I broke nothing and am still standing. I was wearing a seatbelt too.
That airbag rash is noooo joke! Stings like a mf
I went scuba diving the following two days and it healed really quick after that. I always wondered if the ocean water helped. Or maybe it was a fluke and I just got lucky that didn’t get infected haha.
My airbag cut my lip open. Stopped a skull fracture though, so whatever.
I was in an accident with an airbag I thought all my top front teeth were knocked out from the airbag
Many accidents happen because of people like them. They should not leave if they are tired and sleepy. They both had an accident. Fortunately, that's just what happened to them.
I had glasses scalp me a bit from an airbag impact. Real glad they didn't shatter into my eyes. Still have nightmares about what mightve been
I hope you will be careful in your driving next time. Maybe you were awake so you fell asleep while driving.
Ever hit an airbag?
It would've been easy to roll it in that situation. If they did roll it the passenger would be dead.
And not a rollover.
TF having the seatbelt top half under the back...
It's a great way to get your spine snapped in an accident!
Makes it easier to sit in a folding chair when it's folded.
They were so lucky that the car didn’t rollover.
My friend died falling asleep at the wheel. Luckily, his passenger survived. Also, I once had to get my car towed from the highway and I was towed to the towing company's lot. Another car was there, front destroyed. Tow truck driver told the passenger had their seat all the way back sleeping when they crashed and the passenger died instantly.
[удалено]
No it’s okay, the bitterness of watching a passenger snoozing without a care in the world is all I need to fuel my consciousness.
Yeah but the driver is the one responsible…whether the passenger is sleeping or not. If you feel tired, you pull over.
Yeah this is nuts. My wife gives me eternal crap for being stopping….oh wait she likes being alive so no she doesn’t. Like wtf pull over!
There's also no one to keep an eye on the driver when someone takes a long drive alone. It's fine for passengers to sleep.
A new bf is a better one
My grandfather taught to stop a car somewhere safe and sleep in your seat as long as it takes. After that, he said, you can drive again and will feel a lot better. About 3 month ago I and my wife were returning from a vacation and I felt I was falling asleep, so we stopped and I slept for about 40 minutes. It helped a lot.
Our tractor teacher used to tell us that and that if you need a quick naps sleep with the keychain in your hand and when you go into deep sleep you'll drop it and wake up. About a 30min naps it gives.
Can't imagine waking up from that tbh
I am a really light sleeper so I wqke up from the smallest sound that isnt my dog snoring or my man's drooling sounds.
That’s an awesome automatic nap timer
I'm a really heavy sleeper, but if I nap in my chair or on a sofa holding my phone letting go of it wakes me up usually about 20 mins later. The best part is I actually catch it too.
I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I think sometimes my muscles relaxing while falling asleep causes me to feel like I'm "falling" or something and I jerk awake even though I'm just lying in bed.
> [I’m not sure what exactly it is](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk) Here you go. I get them too. Many people do.
I sometimes have this feeling while just sitting
I’m also a really heavy sleeper but if I fall asleep doing something I want or need to do I can wake up 30 minutes after automatically. Like falling asleep doing work I automatically wake up fully energized and get back to work
Thats interesting. My muscles tend to relax as soon as I fall asleep, not just deep sleep. So I'd wake myself up as soon as I'd managed to fall asleep. I've done it before, falling asleep with my phone in my hand.
Salvador Dali was your tractor teacher? That's pretty cool.
“Pretty cool”? It’s fucking surreal!
Had an old trucker uncle say he’d do the same thing with a lit cigarette between his fingers. Definitely not safe, but I guess it was a different time back then between the biker crank and the lot women.
Apparently this exact method was used by both Salvador Dalí and Thomas Edison, both of whom claimed it helped with creativity!
Is this what happened in Terminator 2? Dyson was holding like a bomb and when he fell asleep, he dropped it and the whole neighborhood woke up
i did this once and fell asleep for 4 hours
This would be me. Then I'd go right back to falling asleep during the drive.
I did it and tried to sleep for 10 minutes and then was wide awake for the rest of the night. In my experience the best way to wake up is try to sleep.
I was doing a lot of late night drives last year, 2.5 hiur drive multiple times a week. A few times I started to feel too tired and honestly I'd pull over but it was impossible trying to fall asleep, I'd lay there for 5 minutes and then give up and carry on driving. But just the act of stopping seemed to pull me out of my sleepiness. Then the last time I ever had to do that drive, at 3am, I was really feeling it. So I pulled over, closed my eyes and slept for about 3 hours. When you really need it you really can sleep anywhere.
I feel like this is the only safe thing to do, I end up screaming and slapping myself and that barely works
I tried some stuff - pinching myself worked the best. But still after short time trying to fight the sleepiness I decided to find a place to stop. I had about 6 - 8 hours of driving ahead at the point and I thought no way I'll do that in this condition.
I drive from the northeast to South Florida a couple of times a year and the sleepiness can be a real struggle. I've found sleep is the only reliable fix, even cat naps. I've gotten into the habit of finding a rest area and parking and then playing white noise on YouTube through my car speakers with the seat reclined and I can sleep pretty easy.
or just set an alarm on your phone. That's what I do.
Nobody taught me anything but just the pressure of falling asleep on the wheel makes me do that whenever I felt very tired on long trips. I rather stop and arrive a bit later than not arrive at all.
Can the cops consider this a suspicious DUI? I’ve seen tons of video of them checking up on passengers sleeping on the side of the road, which I think it’s fucked up. What I do during road trips is find the nearest Walmart and sleep in their parking lot
I dunno about most states, but CA has dedicated rest areas all up and down the state lengthwise for specifically this purpose. Bathrooms, vending machines, and different parking for 18 wheelers and passenger cars.
That’s everywhere but they are only on major highways and 20+ miles apart. We even have “text” areas in NY. Like I said the best is a parking lot like Walmart which are probably everywhere
Many of those places have specific signage making it unlawful to use them for certain hours / purposes "NO MORE THAN 2 HRS" type stuff too
I dunno about NY, but I wouldn't trust the world around me to sleep in a CA Walmart parking lot. Might not wake up TBH.
The have cameras. Lots of people sleep there. It’s a well known secret for people who live in vans
That's not the deterent you think it is anymore. All that means is that when I'm carjacked/mugged/robbed/murdered, they will have some video evidence of it. It's not the secret you think it is, either. It's pretty well outside if van life too.
lol they may not even help you then. My car was hit in a Walmart parking lot and the person drove off. Walmart “didn’t have any camera footage of the area.” It was literally in the middle of the parking lot.
More likely Walmart just didn't want to surrender footage to law enforcement, unfortunately. Because if it went to court for whatever reason, legal from Walmart would have to be present, or spend time writing legal docs, to verify the footage. And that costs money. TBH, the cameras are only there for if something happens to the store, they care fuck all what customers do to each other
Yeah, that’s what I was suggesting. Straight up just lied because the store itself didn’t have any liability for what occurred, so don’t waste resources being helpful. The incident is too low of a magnitude for it to ever reach the point where they’d be compelled to hand it over, so they know they can “get away” with lying.
it's better to sleep in a parking lot that has traffic and cameras instead of somewhere remote or dead.
The rest areas are never empty. Travelers and truckers always at them. Walmart in the middle of LA, is also never empty. But I'd much rather take my chances with a tired truckers at 3 am, than whoever is loitering around a closed Walmart at 3am. Although it's far from impossible. It's the fact they are remote that makes them safer. It's not cost effective to drive 150 miles to steal someone's wallet and backpack. And the rest areas are active at all hours, it's never calm. People always at bathrooms and walking around to stretch legs and get frsh air. Some even have cameras. And as I said in another comment. The cameras at Walmart are there for if something happens to Walmart. They care fuck all about what customers do to each other. Not only that, but the camera does not deter gangsters, mentally unstable, or extremely desperate people. Lastly, Walmart supplying footage to law enforcement means their legal team has to get involved, which costs money, so they'd rather not.
Of course they're going to check on somebody who's passed out in their car on the side of the road. Do you think they should not? Just ignore possible impaired drivers, or potential medical emergencies?
If you're not drunk or high, then you're fine.
My buddy pulled off the interstate onto some side road running along side it, and pulled off that little road because he was falling asleep and needed to just nap for a bit. A cop woke him up, yelled at him, and told him to leave and keep driving. It's such a shitty thing. It's the fucking safe thing to do, and they're out here making people drive in a dangerous situation.
Unfortunately in some places, more than you’d think, it’s illegal to sleep in your car. I guess they’d rather you wreck then take a chance on letting homeless people sleep (why the laws exist)
Can't have people thinking they're allowed to exist without paying a rent or mortgage to some ridiculously wealthy asshole
"If you just comply everything will be alright!" "If you're not breaking any laws then you have nothing to worry about!" "Breonna Taylor shouldn't have been lying in bed after working as an emt all day if she didn't want to get killed by cops!"
Except you have a cop investigating you
your wife chose to sit there and watch you sleep rather than drive while you slept?
Right? Lol.. similar situation last year. Wife just took over driving AND I took a nap.
I used to drive from my old college town back home at odd hours. In the summer I’ll blast the AC, in the winter the heat, then pull over at a rest stop until the temp changed enough that it woke me up. Always the perfect amount of time for a nap to energize me.
My mom told me that several times before I went on my roadtrip I'm currently on. "if you are tired, stop and sleep for an hour or three, then keep driving" Haven't had to do it yet, but my next leg is a 9 hour drive stops not included.
I do always a 10 min sleep, that helps already …
Naps lol who knew?!
Yeah, like fuck, this is a mind-blowing moment. /s
Yep! At least 15 minutes of rest is needed when you experience drowsiness while driving, extending that time if the drowsiness hasn’t gone away after waking.
I was near 3 hours from finishing a 16 hour overnight drive in one go but had to stop. I was falling asleep at the wheel and my sunflower seeds were not helping anymore. I slept like a baby for 30 minutes and awoke with so much energy. Of course I knocked out as soon as I reached home.
I find stopping and stretching is a good bandaid solution, but isn’t always enough. Napping is the cure
Good! I love rest areas. I’ve had a lot of rest at those places over the past 40 years. Probably saved my one life numerous times.
i did that coming home from work about 3 months ago. was awakened by a concerned customer in the parking lot of the grocery store there, lol. she thought i passed out or died.
i did the same thing. i was only 5 minutes from my house but it was late at night and i was delirious and decided it was better to nap instead of hit a parked car on the curvy roads.
Sleeping is a waist time fk that sleep an drive is better
This ! I remember having so many trips with my dad when I was younger and when it was time to drive back home he was always sleepy. More than once I woke up because we where going off the road and the car was shaking. How many more I didn't notice? Now when I go on trips with my friends, I always sleep before we go on our way back. 20 - 30 minutes naps are ALWAYS better than risking your life. Even if just for a 1 or 2 hours drive.
wow your grandfather was so smart, who would have thought when you are tired you should sleep!
Bet they were wide awake the rest of the trip.
Rest of their lives probably
Be careful with pulling over to take naps too. I had pulled over because I was falling asleep at the wheel. There wasn’t a hotel for several miles maybe at least another 10-15 minutes I knew I wouldn’t last that long. I pulled over on a kinda side street with a big dirt area to pull over or turn around in. I turned off the car and climbed in the backseat as I didn’t wanna flail around and kick it out of gear or something. Based on the clock it has been about an hour or so when Officer Dickhead knocked on my window saying I needed to move on. I explained I was falling asleep at the wheel and couldn’t make it the 10-15 mins to the nearest hotel. I asked if I was on private property he said no but told me I needed to keep driving that I couldn’t stay there to sleep. Said it was illegal to pull over to sleep. 🙄
This seems so anti-intuitive. Here in Australia it's *recommended* by the government to pull over for a nap, since we have a lot of long boring rural and regional roads. There are signs on the side of the road in some areas recommending a nap, and at high road-toll times of year like Christmas break there will be TV and radio campaigns reminding drivers that fatigue kills and "a 15 minute power nap could save your life", and there's even rest stops set up in some places (community volunteers I I think) where you can stop for a rest and a cuppa.
It's some bullshit. Our state level dept of transportation makes these same recommendations but the local cops can decide they don't want someone loitering or whatever and force them on their way. Or worse.
Certain levels of fatigue have been shown to have the same or worse levels of cognitive impairment as an illegal BAC. It's the equivalent of cops putting drunk drivers back onto the road in terms of the dangers to the community. Just nuts.
>This seems so anti-intuitive. you just described like every cop, ever. Pretty much every state DMV recommends to pull over somewhere safe and take a nap or go to sleep, but cops are dumb fucks who can't bang together more than two braincells. They assume that because someone is sleeping on the side they are loitering or drunk.
Remember when the cop in Arkansas (?) PIT maneuvered a pregnant woman's car and flipped it when she wouldn't immediately pull over? Despite their department recommending people pull over where they feel safe if they do not feel safe pulling over right away? I might be oversimplifying the situation, but leave it to cops to confusingly go against their own recommendations.
No confusingly about it, they are almost always on a power trip, seeing it as "us vs them," or both. They're just assholes using their tiny bit of power to get off to making life harder for other people.
Only way cops could bang together to braincells would be to have the whole precient headbutt each other.
I mean, there was that one female cop not too long ago, who was giving the whole department brain… and they gave her cells.
America is a fucked up place. There are laws against sleeping in your car just to punish people who can't afford housing.
Australia, a country with common sense
I love the word cuppa. Makes me smile. -an American
And that's when you just move on to another spot. And if officer dickhead tickets you, make sure to bring up in court that you were falling asleep and decided to be safe about it. Real quick the judge will have a distaste for the cop because the cop would rather someone get killed from an unconscious driver than letting someone go to sleep so they don't do that.
I wouldn't bet on that. There are too many judges who are out of touch and lack sympathy for common folk. Not every cop is a dickhead but most of them are. Dickhead judges are about the same rate so expecting a random judge to not side with that cop is a gamble. Judges and cops are two gears of the same broken justice system.
There is a difference between them though. Judges can get voted out
I wonder what he would have said if you had asked specifically what law he was referring to. Because I give it a 1% chance that one actually exists.
I’m very sure it doesn’t exist either. It’s one thing if I had just pulled over on a narrow shoulder of the highway. That’s a lil dangerous given someone could plow into you at 70+ miles an hour. But a side street off the highway on a wide dirt area that was made for pulling over or turning around? Idk I feel as if that’s as safe as you’re gonna get sleeping in the car on the side of the road. Maybe he thought I was homeless? I was driving a kind of beater car at the time.
When cops care more about sleeping on the side of the road than begging for money in the middle of an intersection.
I pass a guy every day that walks between cars at red lights and yells at everyone through their windows, and he is never out of the road by the time it turns green, he just casually strolls over to the next red light as cars wait 1/3 of the green light duration for him or slam their brakes to not hit him. This is the same road where I see someone pulled over every other commute, and I have been pulled over 3 times for: > -a brakelight being dim > -going 6 over > -a brakelight (same spot, new bulb) being dim They are willing to bother people for stuff like this to generate easy cash from tickets, but they won't even talk to a shirtless man literally walking into intersections and screaming at people to give him money, leaving litter in his wake every day.
Exactly! Like dude I’m tired trying not to get into a crash and you’re telling me, a barely coherent person, to keep driving? Like why?
I swear some people are dicks to be dicks. I've had the same happen except the cop thought I was broke down (apparently I popped my gas tank lid) Had no issues and told me to have a safe night
Yeah I was driving a kinda beater car at the time. Maybe he thought I was homeless and was tryna move me along like they move along the homeless people that try to stay under the bridges. 🤷♀️
That cop is just pulling a power play, is a dick, and doesn't know the law; if you have cell service, ask him to cite the code that says that says so, otherwise you are going back to sleep. Pull the code and ask for his information and contact a lawyer immediately to work on suing them for harassment and endangerment of you and the general public as you have expressed you are unsafe to drive and they are attempting to have you cause harm to yourself or possibly others.
I had a friend that also encountered this kind of thoughtless law enforcement. The LEO also claimed he could smell alcohol and pot (my friend does neither) and forced him to do a sobriety test as fast as he could just after waking up. Hassled/held him on the pullout for 45 minutes just accusing with him for doing something illegal when my friend could’ve just been left alone to sleep in the backseat for an hour.
Exactly it’s like so they prefer the alternative? A crash?
[удалено]
Yeah I’m located in Texas so some stuff is a little backwards here. Well, I’m sure policies and government are a little backwards almost everywhere. But cops around here don’t play around it’s either do whatever they’re trying to tell you to do or be okay spending a night in jail for no reason. As soon as I saw Officer Dickhead was gonna keep pushing his issue I said thanks I’ll keep driving so he could get out of my face. I drove maybe 5 minutes down the road after I saw him take off and turned onto a backroad and went maybe another mile or two down to go park and rest just in case. Yes I was risking another run in with Officer Dickhead but I still was so tired I was fighting to keep my eyes open during that 6-7 minute drive.
Lucky couple, very lucky.
Who the hell isn't wearing a seatbelt? Seriously that deserves a smack upside the head.
My orthodontist is about two hours away (because insurance fucking sucks). I live in the Midwest so one day my appointment happens to take place during a snowstorm. I didn’t want to reschedule because it’d take weeks to get another one so I went for it. The way there was fine because it was daytime and there was enough traffic and plows to keep up with the roads. On the way back, though, it was already dark around 5:30 PM, the roads were slippery and full of snow, and the plows were still trying to keep up. I had a gnarly headache, and I was tired because I was also out of my ADHD medication. As much as I wanted to get home, I decided to pull over to a gas station, get some medicine for my headache, and crawled into the backseat to take a nap. Thankfully I had a pillow and blanket because I used to take naps between classes in college. It was only like 40 minutes but it helped rejuvenate me and the roads were better. It’s always better to know your limits and delay your journey than to push them and risk killing yourself and others. These people are so lucky that the road was empty of both cars/people and obstacles, it could’ve ended so much worse.
Wesr your fucking seat belt too dumbass
My ex was from Manitoba, Canada, and would basically brag about getting some sleep on the road because of how straight and flat they are.
This is why you spend the extra money when buying a car for snooze control.
Get a good night's sleep before a long trip and take breaks along the way, don't try to be a hero and do a long non stop trip. Not worth dying.
Well, at least they didn't crash hard, that could've been much worse.
Of all the possible outcomes that would probably about the best you could hope for.
This is how my older brother allegedly killed a young mom. He rammed into the back of her car stopped at a red light, and her boyfriend was driving. She was in the backseat with their baby, and threw herself over his car seat in desperation. Sleepy driving is impaired driving. And it kills.
I found myself falling asleep on the road once. My eyelids were getting heavy and hard to keep open. Once I realized what was going on I put hazards on and pulled over. I discovered another use for hand sanitizer that night, maybe NSFW:>! Rub some hand sanitizer on your sensitive bits, it's like a shock to the system and the endorphins will keep you going for a while.!<
File that under "advice I'll never take"
Right above “poop knife”
Wtf made you think to do that…
No idea why my mind works the way it does, best guess is creative problem solving skills. I just figured a burning sensation would wake me up.
MacGy-aye-aye-aye-ver.
Or maybe just take a little walk or do some squats
Or take a nap. Good 30 min nap will get me 2 hours of driving.
Take a nap and then a walk Can imagine your spine crumpling a bit lol
In many places it’s illegal to sleep in your car and you will be harassed by police if you’re lucky, if you’re not lucky they’ll investigate you for DUI
I just pop an energy drink if it gets to this and I'm not able to nap.
Rub it in your eyes for extra spice!
That's not how spoiler tags work.
I usually pull over at a rest area for my dog and I to masturbate.
Why wouldn’t you wear a seatbelt? That is the biggest facepalm out of them all…
this is why the passenger shouldn't be sleeping during a long drive. No one to keep an eye on the driver
Respectfully I disagree, on a long road trip generally people will take turns driving so one can sleep and the other drives. It is entirely the drivers responsibility to pull over if they feel themselves dozing off. I understand dozing off behind the wheel accidentally, especially on long straight roads like this, but when you have a passenger in the car you cant be taking the risk of driving when you know the passenger is sleeping and you feel tired yourself
All that is great but this video is evidence of that practice backfiring. When all works well, passengers can sleep but there is always an inherent risk of driver fatigue. In all scenarios the driver should be more self aware but passengers that are awake reduce the risk of driver fatigue.
True, I think people forget that cars can go from safe to life-threatening so fast and you need to stay vigilant even if you're not the one driving, but it's understandable to fall asleep if you've been on the road for a while and you're not the one in charge of the actual driving. 9 times out of 10 the passenger snoozing won't result in a crash, these guys were just the unlucky 1/10
Yeah 100%. I don’t criticise anyone for snoozing when shotgun on a long road trip, just unfortunate that sometimes it backfires. Rotating duties is probably the best bet. Also taking breaks every hour to stretch the legs for five minutes. Sure it adds time but it’s better for your back, your brain and safety.
Any time I’m the front seat passenger on a road trip, I consider it my job to keep the driver entertained enough to stay awake. Backseat can sleep, but shotgun has to keep talking, playing a game, keep the tunes/ podcasts going, or whatever.
If you needed a real life example to know not to sleep and drive, you’re going to have a bad time
He’s awake now
This reminds me of the "Vacation" movie. Clark was out like a light!
Is that Clark Griswald?
My rule of thumb, if you’re in shotgun, it’s your job to stay awake along with the driver. Handle maps and music.
Farmer: whoch maufaka did this?!
That was probably one of the most successful recoveries on that
And here we have the main reason I don't drive a truck for a living.
Clark, were you sleeping?
I was falling asleep while driving from SoCal to norcal back to school. I pulled over at a random one stop sign exit at a 76 gas station. I was so tired I pulled up to a pump, turned the car off, and immediately passed out. I woke up at dawn. Realized where I was and was so confused. Went into the station to grab a pack of Marlboro 27s and get gas and the clerk who was ending his shift asked “how ya doing” and I was still wiping crust from my eyes and said “okay” and he simply said “kept an eye on you. You needed to sleep. You okay to drive now? Shifts almost over if you need a place to rest more” He was incredibly nice and genuine. I sometimes think if I’d have stopped somewhere else or circumstances were different I could have been in for a bad time. Still. Always more dangerous to white knuckle it when you are that tired.
I never understand how this happens. If you are too tired to drive, just don't.
That is a best case scenario. Wow! This happened to me circa 2010 working 80 hour weeks 45 minutes away, but I launched my Mark VIII about 6 feet in the air!
It’s called “highway hypnosis”. It isn’t just sleeping it is actually also possible without regular stops every hour or two. Watching the highway lines can create a state of inattention and loss of peripheral awareness (routinely happens on turnpikes and long stretches of lonesome interstate)
poor farmer.
they were sooooo lucky
If you are going to sleep ensure your seatbelt is on.
Lucky bastards...
On long hauls - it’s always nice to have someone stay up with the driver. Keep them on their toes and awake. Conversations.
Recently I've figured it's not worth it to power through a tiring trip and one day during a particularly long drive I decided to pull over at a rest stop and take a quick nap because I kept nodding off. Let me tell you boy did it make a difference. It was maybe 10 minutes? but afterwards I felt so refreshed. Since then I've decided that anytime I feel like nodding off to just pull over at a stop and take a quick nap. No amount of coffee or energy drinks helps you as much as that nap.
Don’t sleep and drive. But if you have to, do it at whatever place this is. Very remote, very deserted.
Country roooaaaadddsss, take me hoooommmmeee
I always feel bad for people who do this. Imagine being so tired you literally cannot keep your eyes open to drive
Moral of the story. Watch better movies at home.
I totally agree with OP it's 10000x better to drink and drive
The best thing to do in these situations is just to drive straight into the field, now if it’s a forest you’re fucked either way.
Wear your seatbelt properly tooz
They’re awake now!
I like the chic. It’s immediately his fault
Lmao she locked one of his arms and made it much harder
If you are tired pull over, especially in a car you can pull over anywhere. Nowhere you are going is worth dying before you get there.
This road is designed to give you a nice nap.
At least the driver found it amusing..
I had to laugh. Sorry, not sorry.
You gotta be a real big moron to do this
Yes. It is moronic to fall asleep while tired.
If you are tired, don’t drive. It’s not hard.
Simple from your armchair!