Topic: I could be dead...

[RHG]

So this weekend I went wheeling with lilbuddy and Fireball and Kiyul and BBW and...so anyway Chico is about a 2hr drive from home and I left Lilbuddys house pretty late on Saterday night. I was talking to my friend on the phone on the ride home for a while then got off the phone so I could concentrate on the road. While on the phone I said something like I was too smart to fall asleep at the wheel, I'd pull over before that happened. Well I obviously am not as smart as I thought because I ended up nodding off and taking a detour off the side of the road. Luckily there was no ditches or fences for me to smash into. I woke up real quick and had to get my truck straight again and figure which way the road was. I immediatly pulled over and bout myself. I have been thinking about this the rest of the weekend and realized it might be something worth sharing. I know everyone says it wont happend to them but guess what...it can and will if your not smart enough. I was a lucky one to be able to tell about this experience. For the rest of the ride home I stayed on the phone with my friend and talked about stupid . I didnt think it would happend to me but that long boring dark road along with the nice humm of my swampers sunk in real fast. Dont let it happen to you. It would be a real shame to lose a boardmember.

[lubo]

glad to hear you're all right.

if caffeine works for you ... always carry at least a drink or two ... extra in the truck/car w/ u .. or caffeine pills or something, if you know you'll be driving,and u'll be tired.
i avoid driving once i feel sleepy, or just pull over and sleep, no matter what.
that's how i messed up my 1st mr2. I hit the guard rail at 80mph .... about 20 miles from fresno, when coming home after nont sleeping for about 36 hrs.
it's hard to understand this ... until you endanger ur own life, and then you realize how important ur mental/physical condition is when you drive.

glad to hear you're all right. i wasn't that lucky when it happened to me.

btw .. you must live in my area, cuz chico is about 2 hrs from here.

i'm in walnut creek.

[RHG [OP]]

Vacaville...yup, never understand it until it happened. Scary.

[lubo]

uhum.

i couldn't look at the car for a week. when i picked up a new bumper at the junk yard .. and hammered the rest of the stuff back into shape.
now i keep my eyes on the road ... not in the skirt on the pass side

[BUBBA]

I know exactly how you feel RHG.I've actually had that happen to me twice.The first time I was 16.I had only had my license for about a month and was coming home from six flags with a friend.I had been up since about 6 that morn and it was a 3 hr drive home.It was about 1am and my friend had already passed out so here I was pretty much alone,it was dark,I wasn't use to driving at night and had been up along time and spent all day at the amusment park.I was on a 4 lane divided highway and I nodded off.Luckily,there was a car beside me and when I nodded off I started drifting towards it and they blew the horn and woke me back up.If that car hadn't been there I would have crossed the median into who know's what.
Obviously I didn't learn from that cause it happened again about six yr's later.I was working 3rd shift and I was bad to not go to sleep when I got off on friday mornings.I would just stay up all day and then crash that night.My wife and I were just dating then and it was about 2 or 3 in the morn when I dropped her off.I was fine while she was there,but as soon as I dropped her off and started home,I began nodding almost immediatly.It was only about 5 miles home so I figured I could make it no problem.About a half mile from home I woke up and could see nothing but tall weeds hitting the front of the truck.Luckily I was on a gravel road so I was going slow and was probably only going about 25 mph.The bank I ran off of was only about 5 ft high where I ran off the road at and was sloped pretty good.I did have to put it in 4 wheel drive to back out.If I had ran off the road only 20 yard's farther down I would have probably rolled cause the bank got alot steeper and higher.
There's alot of other times I've had where I don't remeber traveling a certain part of the road and others where I've nodded and caught myself before anything happend.

[RHG [OP]]

The 3rd shift is exaclty what I do...I get off at 8am on friday and dont end up going to sleep until late that night or even early Saterday morning. Not very smart. I got to watch myself and be smarter about this. Also makes it hard to deny that there isnt someone up there watching over you. I know there are places on that road that have deep ditches or fences on the side but I was lucky, I nodded at a spot where there was just dirt.

[*FFC*]

Ok I'mma bite. 

It was the 4th of July, we lived in Concow at the time, and we'd driven almost to the Oregon border early that mornin to catch an 8am parade.  Mom and I came back just in time to watch the fireworks around 10pm in Chico.  She was driving and I was in the passenger's seat.  I always stayed awake to help keep her awake, but this time sleep got the best of me.  This is no joke.  My mother remembers driving out of the fairgrounds and gettin on the freeway, she was conscious of going around a bend on our road (bout 40 miles later), then she woke up in our driveway.  I'm so not kidding.  She still to this day marvels over it.  I indeed believe my guardian angels were workin over time

[lubo]

it's not uncommon.
about 2 years back, when i still did pizza delivery, i'd be at school all morning, and do a part time job during the day, then work at the pizza place all night, until about 2 .... going home at 3am .. many times i do not remember anything from the trip home, at all. the only thing i remember is getting up at 6am again to go to class.

need to be really careful w/ this stuff. i don't do it anymore, but i'm sure it will happen to me again, cuz i have a bad habit of driving in the middle of the night, and always to places very far away.

just be careful 

 

as for the fellow up there watching over me ..... i don't think i can ever repay for that. i've survived some really f-ed up accidents, and it happens at least once a year. i hope to get through this stage soon, before my truck gets to feel the bad karma.

[whiteman]

I usually dont have that problem, almost every person in my family is a truck driver so It runs in the familly.

But there are the rare ocassions when I start to dose off,  I just roll the window down and stick my head out leting my hair and lips flap in the wind like a big ol' saint Bernard.  (If you drool it helps even more)     Just a thought. 

Be carfull man we dont need no dead folks on here.

[Rocksurfer]

I get daily cafine infusions, don't have blood in my vains just coffee. I am always tired and have a 24hr shift one day go wheelin' the next and pulled another 24hr the next. Help me I don't know what sleep is!!!! Some of my friends and club members always wonder how I do it.







Good the hear you survived what could have been a life-ending experience....  but if you were in L.A. and did that you may have got to meet me. Though that would not have been a good thing.

[BLACKDOG]

been there to Rocks, glad to hear you're alright. 

I did that dirinvg home from school my first year of college.  I pulled all day classes tues and thursday, and worked monday wed friday.  IU was in class from 730am to 8pm then had to drive home to vacaville from sacramento.  I remember getting on the causeway (right outside sac) and realizing where I was in dixon (30 miles later)  scared the bejeepers outta me.  Now when its late, I go windows down, music up, and some caffeine.  Froze my off coming back from redding one time, I wanna say in march, at about 3 in the morning, had my dickies winter work coat, a t shirt, flannel shirt, and jeans on, and when I got back I was freezin, but I made it. 

counting cars also helps.  from redding to Sac that night there were 103 vehicles, including big rigs.

[Willy Mammoth]

I too have been there and done that,   I was comming home from a trip up north, about 26 hr drive alone and remmember driving down a long straight road with no bridges in sight.   Next thing I know I wake up just in time to see an overpass go by.   I was wide awake after that and stopped at the next rest stop.

Maybe there was someone watching out for me that day.

People be safe out there. 

[wa4x4]

Driving to school I was going through a school zone at about 25 on a long straight road at about 7am with about 3 hours of sleep in me after an all nighter and put my head back on the head rest and started enjoying the heater. Didn't come to until I heard a horn blaring at me because I was drifting into oncoming traffic. Not fun. Woke me up real quick though.

[motorider228]

we moved to las vegas 2.5 months ago from missouri and me and my brother drove straight out in my old truck and my mom followed in her car and my dad drove the moving truck and so my brother drove the first shift from kansas city to amarillo texas and i was supposed to drive from there to las vegas, well somewhere in new mexico i started dozing off and swirving and my mom called my bro who was in the truck with me passed out and told him he had to drive, well i then got a 3 hour nap then had to take the wheel from probably an hour before flagstaff arizona to vegas and the sun had already set so it was hard. When i was in the middle of the desert at night my vision was so blurry i was seeing 3 cars for every 1 vehicle and the reflectors in the road were also 3 for every 1. The only reason i didnt fall asleep again is because i put both windows all the way down on the freeway and turned some pennywise all the way up.  I have a friend whos dad fell asleep on the freeway in the middle of the night and wrecked his car and died and i always thought how could someone actually do that, until i did. Im glad all of you guys lived to tell your stories, were abunch of lucky bastards. 

[Cheesemaker]

At night seems to be the worst for me!  I've been known to have them looong blinks!  That's why I started using Copenhagen, that's when I used to get the buzz from it!      But now I just pull over and run around my rig a few times to get my heart rate up and get some O2 in my lungs!  Caffeine don't do anything for me!  I can drink a pot of cowboy coffee, and a few no doze and I can still fall asleep!

I just got back from a outdoor school program that I volunteer at, after a week of running around on gravel roads, hiking, trails, skits, songs, & etc, once you hit the pavement, it's like the hum of the tires lulls you asleep!  We tell the counselors as they are leaving to pull over if you get tired.  Some of them only have to drive five miles, but it takes me one maile and I'm noding off!