Jessica and husband Keaton |
Daughters Aryanna and Lylah |
During the KGW newscast regarding
this story tonight, it said this young mother, Jessica, fell asleep. Driving
while drowsy. Well, any way you look at it, if this is the case, she
unintentionally but very preventably caused this tragedy. That sounds so
callous of me to say. I’m going to leave it that way, though, hopefully to
underscore that so many of us repeatedly do things behind the wheel of our cars
that are dangerous and while we’re doing these things we make excuses in our
minds… if we’re thinking about it at all.
Who among us hasn’t had the thought
“Boy, I’m tired. I probably shouldn’t be driving”? I know I have. And I’ve also
followed that thought with, “Oh, I’ll be okay. It’s not that bad. I’ll 1) roll
down my window, 2) turn the music up really loud, 3) insert your own strategy.”
I even know that I did in fact actually
fall asleep once while driving home from a graveyard shift at Denny’s.
Thankfully I made it home okay to my two (at that time) little boys.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC)
said on 1/7/13: “Although it may be difficult to attribute a fatal
vehicle crash to drowsy driving, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration estimates that 2.5% of fatal crashes and 2% of injury crashes
involve drowsy driving.2 These estimates are probably conservative,
though, and up to 5,000 or 6,000 fatal crashes each year may be caused by
drowsy drivers. 3-5” (#2 references a 2011 NHTSA publication,
3-5 references reports of these organizations: 2006 Association for the
Advancement of Automobile Medicine, 2006 Virginia DOT, and 2010 AAA ). The National
Sleep Foundation (referenced by both the CDC and NHTSA) said in a 2007 report
that 1550 people die and 71,000 are injured annually.
Here are some signs that
should tell a driver to stop and rest:
- Difficulty focusing, frequent blinking, or heavy eyelids
- Daydreaming; wandering/disconnected thoughts
- Trouble remembering the last few miles driven; missing exits or traffic signs
- Yawning repeatedly or rubbing your eyes
- Trouble keeping your head up
- Drifting from your lane, tailgating, or hitting a shoulder rumble strip
- Feeling restless and irritable
And what appears to be a universal
recommendation if you are driving drowsy:
Stop driving immediately. Pull over
at a safe spot and take a quick nap.
There are other suggestions, like
stop for a cup of coffee, change drivers, etc., but even these are just other
ways of saying Stop driving immediately.
Nobody wants to have their two
little girls stranded and injured outside a vehicle containing their dead
mother’s body, especially when it was totally preventable. (And of course,
other bad driving behaviors could lead to the same thing). Horrible!