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One of the most profound lessons that I've learned, in my time in working in sleep disorders,
is the lesson of drowsy driving and how dangerous it is to operate a vehicle while you are under
the influence of lack of sleep. Most people don't think about drowsy driving the way they
would think about drunk driving. It's well known, and pretty much impossible to argue,
that operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol is a poor decision that is dangerous,
for not only the driver, but for the rest of society in general. People don't think
that drowsy driving is a problem. I can assure you, in the time that I've worked in sleep
disorders, that I've seen the effects and ramifications that can come from a drowsy
driving incident or accident. Ranging all the way from a patient understanding that
they were drowsy, fell asleep for a second at the wheel and being absolutely terrified
at the thought of that, coursing all the way up to, I fell asleep at the wheel and caused
an accident, which is a horrible thing. The danger in drowsy driving comes from a concept
called microsleep and it is the sensation of nodding out for a minute and then coming
back to. It only takes two to four seconds to nod out in a microsleep and loose complete
control of your car. At 65 mph it doesn't even take that long for you to drift into
the other lane of traffic or head-on to the side of the road and possibly end up off of
the road. Coming back out of the microsleep, even though you may feel awake, you are not
going to have enough time or reaction time to regain control your vehicle. It's a dangerous
situation and microsleep is potentially fatal in this respect, in terms of piloting a vehicle
and not being able to get control.