Amazing Science

As a car driver I was astounded to learn about scientific research into the phenomena of sleep driving. Apparently, up to ten percent of all drivers on the road are actually asleep. Researchers claim that most traffic accidents are actually caused by drivers who are snoozing at the wheel.



It was a frantic call to a Toronto EMS operator that started the ball rolling on research. A woman claimed that her husband was asleep at the wheel of the family sedan, she could not wake him, and he was taking the car onto the 401 during rush hour. The EMS call center assumed that this was a joke call, at first, and put the woman on hold. Five minuites later, as the blue sedan careened through rush hour traffic across the top of the city, another EMS operator took up the call by accident. The woman, her voice hoarse from shrieking, managed to convince the EMS dispatcher that her life threatening situation was for real.

An EMS unit managed to drive alongside the sedan as it neared the 401/400 interchange. Rob, the EMS driver, confirmed that the man driving appeared to be asleep, and that there was a hysterical female in the back seat of the car, who has written Help Me in lipstick on the windows. Rob was able to climb betweeen the two moving vehicles and bring the sedan to a stop.

Apparently, the sleeping driver suffered from a condition known to scientists as sleep driving. If you have ever found your car to be unexpectedly low on gas, have front end alignment problems, or find tree branches in your bumper, someone in your family may suffer from sleep driving. Most cases of bad driving seem to be caused by people who are asleep at the wheel. Up to ten percent of drivers sleep at the wheel, sometimes every day.

Just last week I saw a car drive over a road median. The driver was fast asleep. Yesterday, I saw another car pull out in front of a loaded gravel truck. Sleep driving is all around us, say scientists. When cars drive over road medians, it can screw up their front end alignment in the same way that bouncing off a bridge abuttment can twist a car frame. Sleep drivers also veer across all lanes of traffic, drive the wrong way down highways, drive under transport trucks, ignore stop signs, and never signal.

The next time you see someone driving erratically, you should realize that they are probably asleep at the wheel. It is dangerous to wake them up, so do not pound on your horn and yell at them. If a sleeping driver is woken suddenly, they can lose bladder control and bruise their vocal cords from shrieking. Ontario's socialist health care system is overburdened and you would be contributing to the crisis, so you should show them some courtesy and let them sleep peacefully as they drive.

I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this.