DRIVING TIRED

Most EVOC programs are under a time restraint. Classroom time is limited; therefore classroom subjects need to be carefully selected. A classroom topic that needs to be considered is the affect of fatigue on the driving task.

THE PROBLEM
The simple fact is, like every body else police officers go to work tired. Due to the nature of the job, and when you consider that a police officer spends as much as four times the hours per day in a vehicle than the average driver, they are particularly susceptible to fatigue. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration law enforcement officers are one of the higher at risk work groups for fatigue related accidents. Also, like everyone else, most officers don't feel that fatigue is a serious impediment to their driving ability until the fatigue has become so serious that they are in real danger.

The symptoms of fatigue are obvious. After all, everyone has had trouble keeping their eyes open at some time. How many times have you said or heard your fellow officer say "I'm beat"? So being tired and having to work tired is something that is well recognized. However, the early signs of fatigue are not so obvious. Whether driving on patrol and coming home from a family outing we all have had the following experience:

We drive a car down a route we travel every day. Nothing noteworthy happens on the drive, and at some point on the route, an intersection, a bridge, wherever, we suddenly realize that we don't remember driving to that spot. It is as if we suddenly materialized at that intersection or bridge.

This is a strong warning that you are fatigued.

Drivers can resist the effects of fatigue by simply being aware of them, knowing they exist and being alert to the first warning signs. And just what kind of problems does driving while fatigued create?

1. When tired, you may have a hard time concentrating on your driving. This should be no great revelation. When we are tired, we have a hard time concentrating on anything we do. Moving in a 4500 pound object going 60 feet a second (40 MPH) is not a time to have a lapse in concentration.
2. When fatigued, we tend to take more risks. You may do things while fatigued you would never think of doing when well-rested. Simply put - fatigue dulls the mind.
3. When tired, drivers have a tough time keeping their cars in the proper lane. They may weave and appear drunk, but they're not. They're just very tired. The results are the same though; it's a dangerous, accident-producing situation.
4. A fatigued driver often speeds up and slows down erratically. If you often find yourself doing that, be aware of it.
5. If a fatigued driver ignores these early warning signals and continues to drive, vision deteriorates and it gradually becomes very difficult to see. Attention focuses forward. The driver will begin to miss signals of signs in the peripheral vision area. In other words, the driver develops "tunnel vision." If an officer does not have peripheral vision they will have a difficult time seeing cars coming from an intersection. This accounts, in part, for many of the police accidents that occur near the end of a long shift.

Many of the time honored cures for fatigue simply won't work for a police officer, like drinking coffee to stay awake is only a stopgap, temporary measure. The caffeine can bring you up fast, but as the kidneys eliminate it from the body, it will also bring a person down-fast. The solution to fatigue is rest. Experiments indicate that the most successful driving is performed when rests of 20-30 minutes were taken for every one-and-a-half to two hours of driving. The surest way to recover from fatigue is to stop and rest or take a short nap. In law enforcement taking a break is doable, but taking a nap is impossible. However, a brief stop and just a leg-stretching short walk can be valuable in fighting fatigue.

REACTION TIME
Without a doubt the biggest problem fatigue can create is it's the affect on reaction time. Due to fatigue, there can be as much as a half second added to the time it takes to react to an emergency. That may not sound like much but at 60 MPH a half second delay in reacting to an incident is 45 feet, and at 40 mph a half a second is 30 feet. That could be the difference between the scenario being an emergency and not being an emergency.

As a demonstration of this affect, during a lane change exercises, at a speed that was brain dead easy, give the signal to change lanes a half second later. (Look at the Time and Distance article to compute the numbers).

SEATING POSITION
There is no single clear-cut fool proofed way to beat fatigue, but seating position is often critical. The way you sit in a car can help you remain alert.

Many people blame car seats for an uncomfortable ride. Most of the time the seats aren't to blame - it's the way we sit in them. Sitting erect allows us to stay alert longer. Shoulder and arm position are also important. Get in your vehicle and place your hand at the top of the steering wheel. When you do this your shoulder should not be out of contact with the seat back. If your shoulder does rise off the seat back, you'll find that when you execute an emergency maneuver, you'll be lifted right off your seat. Instead of using the steering wheel to control the car, you'll be using it to hold yourself in place.

As you sit comfortable, look at your arms. If they are bent at the elbow more than 90 degrees, the result will be poor circulation and very tired arms in a short time.

Let your officers know what the symptoms of fatigue; it can be a life saver.