long distance driving

In My Humble Opinion
1

My family just got back from a trip to Florida, which from our home is about a 16 hour drive. Once again, I am irritated by my inability to drive much longer than two or three hours without getting drowsy. And it doesn’t matter what time of day we start, early morning, afternoon, night, I still get sleepy in a couple hours or so. If I drink coffee or Mountain Dew it helps a little, but not much.

Anyone else like this? Anything I can do about it? Hell, I know people who routinely drive 8-10 hours by themselves with no problem. And I would like to help my wife out just a bit more, and it’s a little bit of an ego thing too, I’ll admit.

2

Why not just take a break every three hours? I find I need that anyway, so I pull into a rest area or restaurant for about ten minutes. That usually fixes things.

Also, do you have cruise control? It definitely makes a difference.

3

My favorite fatigue fighter on long drives is hard candy. Life Savers, peppermints, Wether’s butterscotch – it’s all good. I chain-eat them on long drives … probably 10-15 per hour.

Honestly, though … after three hours in a car, I find it worth my while to stop for ten minutes to stretch my legs, buy a drink/snack, use the restroom, etc. People that drive much longer than that non-stop must have amazing circulation. My legs will start hurting.

4

First, make sure you car isn’t leaking exhaust fumes into the car. That would account for the the uncontrolled sleepiness that Mountain Dew can’t curb. My other suggestion would be to entertain yourself with an audio book or comedy albums. Maybe you are just easily bored and need something to stimulate your mind other than the monotonous drone of tires on asphalt.

5

Tiredness after 2-3 hours driving is natural and normal. It’s unsafe to try and fight it - I’d rank getting in a car with someone driving 10 hours solid only a bit below getting in a car with a driver over the limit.

6

I used to routinely drive from Seattle to Oakland. I’ve found good music goes a long way. Tunes you like to sing to and skip the slow numbers. I third or whatever the advice of fellow Dopers of stopping once in a while for stretching.

7

Red bull.

8

I can usually drive up to 6 or 7 hours without getting tired. But, rare times I have lots of trouble staying awake (late night the night before, etc.). Candy, good music you can sing along too helps a bit.

Talk radio is great, or books on tape - something you really pay attention to and doesn’t become background noise.

Checking other cars for cute girls and smoking cigarettes helps too! :slight_smile:

9

The last time I drove from Orlando to Miami to visit friends, I left directly after work in the evening, so I was already tired after a long day. I was trying to listen to Bar Exam review lectures on cassette, which were just making me zone out even more. I felt like I could very easily fall asleep at the wheel, so I started slapping myself in the face HARD, at regular intervals. You’d be surprised how hard you can actually slap yourself and make it sting and burn.

Then I realized if I just turned off the lecture cassette and flipped through radio stations, the activeness of channel-surfing plus the music would re-energize me. And it worked. Ouch!

10

I love long drives, and as long as my bladder doesn’t disagree, I can go six hours or so without stopping. If I get tired, though, I have several different techniques that I employ, from chain smoking to rolling the window down all the way to smacking myself in the face. Usually, I pull over and take a nap in a rest stop. :slight_smile:

I find that the best way to keep myself from becoming tired is definitely the music. I have very strict rules about my car radio (I’m the kind of person that will pull over and make an offender get in the backseat for touching the radio without permission). Rule number one is Never turn off Elvis. (Coincidentally, the first ever backseat offender did just that.) Rule number two: If I don’t know the words, I’m not listening to it. The part of my mind that’s singing along with the radio, whether aloud or not, is what keeps me awake. I make a whole new set of mix CDs before any trip of more than three hours–stuff I can sing along to. 'Cause if I’m alone in the car … well, it’s the Me Show, and I’m sure other drivers get a kick out of it.

11

I will put in about 16 hours of driving in a day before I start getting tired. Cruise control helps, as does having a vehicle large enough to move my legs around a bit without cramping. I get about 850 kilometers to a tank of fuel, and generally do not take any breaks other than to coincide with fuel stops. I listen to good music (I have a high quality sound system), occasionally interspersed with news on the radio, and just generally try to keep myself stimulated. Cool, fresh air helps. I’d probably get drowsy in a vehicle that was too warm.

12

I recently drove from Northern Virginia to NYC straight through with only one stop to pee. I had borrowed a bunch of CDs from my brother and brought along some new ones I had bought. I almost prefer driving by myself, since I can blast my music as loud as I want the whole time without any of that bothersome “talking” that the other passengers would want to do.

13

Oy, you have my sympathy.

Riding in cars has always put me to sleep. When I was little and having asthma attacks in the middle of the night, I would fall asleep in the car on the way to the ER…

Then, when I first started working, I was a 3hr 15 min drive away from Mom’s house, and the city where my then GF now wife lived, all along some pretty desolate and barren, but often treachrous, highway (401 between Kingston & Montreal, for you curious Canucks….)

I would drive down, almost always in the evening, every second weekend. To this day, I wonder at being still alive. Ahh the stupid belief of young men in their own immortality :rolleyes:

Cafeine helped. Cold air, any kind of music, unconfortable objects between my back & the seat back, slapping my face, did not. I must have worn off many of my guardian angel’s feathers on those drives.

Oddly enough, a good audio book, or even better, good standup comedy, either live on the radio, or recorded, not only kept me awake but made the time go by much faster. The sunday nigh sex-show call-in radio program that ran for a year or two was always good for the purpose of keeping awake. I would alternate from annoyance at the caller’s ignorance (must of been 5 calls / show from younger girls asking if they were pregnant) to shock and amazement at how sheltered a life I was living. (crative uses for vegetables and doorknobs, anyone?) :eek:

Now being married, I find conversation also really helps. It’s one of the navigator’s responsability in our family car to be able to come up with a topic of discussion whenever the driver asks: “talk to me about anything, I’m getting sleepy”. Many silly ideas can be debated, e.g. which fruits make the best projectiles for different purposes, which breed of cattle looks smarter, etc. etc. We also switch every or 4 hours or so, and take a 15 min break to walk around, visit mother nature, etc.

14

I could do those long hauls when I was young…now, I’m lucky if I make it to the city limits before I’m tired. I think it’s just a part of getting older.

Hell, when Kalhoun Jr and I would take off on a trip, that kid would keep me company for hours. I made it from Chicago to Denver in 17 hours with a toddler!

15

Let’s see, the minivan has cruise control. With two kids, we made stops whether we wanted to or not. And I can’t blast music or open windows because of these very same kids. Conversation seemed to help and stopping prolonged the inevitable. And driving over night in the dark is really a tough nut. I’ll probably not do that again. I think it’s just a fact of life, like why my hair is brown or whatever. I get sleepy, my wife doesn’t. It’s rather frustrating and a little kick to my ego, too. Oh well.

16

I drive from SF to Riverside a few times a year. Usually between refueling and my constant intake of Diet Coke, I have to stop twice on the way. In between, I realized that singing along to a CD was good at keeping me awake. I have am mp3 CD player, so I just burn the entire No Doubt discography onto a disc and wail along. Works great.

17

The things that help me on long drives are good audio books(they must be unabridged) or talk radio.
The best thing to keep me awake is talk radio that I don’t agree with as that gets the blood pumping a bit faster as I argue with the radio.

18

I was riding along with a truck driver friend of mine once on a long overnight trip. I asked him at the beginning of the trip what he did when he got tired, and he just gave me a look and said, “I don’t get tired.” Well, at about 4am, we’d been on the road for a long time, and we were both getting pretty drowsy. He turned to me and told me I could never tell anyone about what he was about to do (I don’t think this counts).

To put things in perspective, he looks exactly like the stereotypical truck driver you don’t want to mess with - huge arms, a bit of a beer belly, kind of stocky, with enough facial hair to qualify as stubble, but not a beard. He pulled a box out of somewhere, opened it up, and started handing me all sorts of noisemakers like you would see at a party: twirly things, those paper horn things that unroll and honk when you blow into them, and a bunch of other stuff. The kicker was two of those paper cone shaped hats that say “Happy Birthday” or something and have lots of glitter. We both put one on, and spent about half an hour just making a racket. We switched back and forth from wishing each other happy birthday and proclaiming “Happy New Year” at the top of our lungs.

Definitely a great way to stay awake on the road.

19

Hey Guys, please be really careful about using cruise control when drowsy. On my second overnight drive from Cleveland to Toronto to pick up my husband at the airport I fell asleep at the wheel and went off the road. I did wake up, there was no damage to the car and the adrenalin was sufficient to keep me awake for the rest of the drive, but on the way back in daylight I realized that it was a miracle that I ran off where I did, one of the few places on I90 that didn’t have guard rail to run into. And this is why, (along with a bunch of other undeserved life savings) that I believe in some kind of God. Somebody is clearly watching my ass, because frequently, I’m not. So, please, watch what you are doing with the cruise. I love it, but it should not be used if you feel at all drowsy. Neither should your car. Please pull over, take a break, let someone else drive if you can. It’s not a contest.

20

Ask your SO if you snore excessively. My Dad was a heavy-duty snorer, and only learned within the last few years that’s he’s been suffering from sleep apnea. He would regularly fall asleep after only a few hours of driving, yet I can drive cross-country by myself in two days without any drowsiness.