When you are driving, you should be doing just that and nothing else. In case of an accident, do not touch or move the seriously wounded victims unless there is a risk of fire or toxic fumes. FILE PHOTO
Fatigue not as a single concept but rather a combination of different factors that affect how your body reacts towards certain activities, Paul Kwamusi, a road safety consultant at Integrated Transport Systems Limited says . A case in point is driving. Fatigue combines components such as tiredness, sleep deprivation, stress, anxiety, drowsiness and at some levels, depression. The bottom line of fatigue is loss of body energy.
Fatigue and road crashes
Because it causes loss of energy in your body, which is the bottom line, fatigue accelerates challenges for driving, something that requires maximum concentration yet it directly affects and counters concentration. Secondly, driving is about being alert and anticipation, yet fatigue brings in muscle relaxation where muscles relax and don’t have to be bothered. Technically, this puts driving and fatigue on two different ends. For instance, when you drive nonstop for three hours, which is equivalent from Kampala City to Lwengo district, along Masaka road, or from Kampala City to Iganga district along Jinja road, the body starts misbehaving and not accepting and giving way and wants rest. “The real danger with fatigue is that as a driver, you move from being active and gradually start showing signs of microsleep. After strong signs of fatigue like yawning and microsleep, danger starts to set in. Unless you stop and rest, you may descend from microsleep to full sleep while behind the steering wheel. That is why it is advisable that as soon as you feel signs of microsleep, stop and rest and rejuvenate back into being active. Otherwise, you can end up into sleep while on the move and get off the road,” Kwamusi explains. The more tired and fatigued you are, the greater the risk of causing a road crash. Motorists who mostly deal with fatigue are long distance drivers. Because driving confines you in one sitting position, there’s insufficient blood circulation in the body- the more reason you need to make frequent stopovers to rest to revive the body’s ability to concentrate maximally and productively.
Fatigue misconceptions
As a driver, the first misconception about fatigue is that you can control it. Your failure to accept that you’re tired is one of the biggest commonest problems amongst many drivers. However experienced you may be, regardless of age, you cannot manage or control fatigue. There are limitations to the human body. “The risk of fatigue among drivers is to accept that it is a reality. Fatigue is a silent killer. Every time you wake up from fatigue, the vehicle is taking a wrong direction,” Kwamusi adds.
Energy drinks
Before you use energy drinks, Kwamusi advises you to first understand what energy drinks or any other drink outside the normal drinks do to the human body. The first thing, he opines, is that energy drinks are stimulants in the short run. Any stimulant only works at a certain limit. At the same time, these stimulants are also depressants. You’re actually risking depression because they work in a very short term. Later on, there’s no way around resting. In defensive driving, it is advisable to take a short nap that’s a safer method of managing fatigue on the road instead of energy drinks. Esther Bayiga, a road safety researcher affiliated to Makerere University School of Public health, agrees with Kwamusi, stating that human bodies get tired when overstretched. “Driving is mentally exhausting because you are concentrating and the brain is fully alert. If you’re fatigued, you lose ability to concentrate on the road because fatigue pushes the brain to doze. Fatigue creates room for errors that you end up making mistakes on the road that you wouldn’t otherwise have made when sober,” Bayiga says.
The medical perspective
Charles Ibingira a doctor at Lifeline International Hospital at Zzana says when you’re fatigued, many things are affected, including your sense of judgement. A number of neurotransmitters in the body send you to sleep, thus making it very dangerous to drive when fatigued even if you use energy drinks. “Energy drinks increase your levels of alertness. However, your body’s need to rest at some point catches up with you. There’s also a problem of habituation and addiction where, whenever you’re fatigued, you’re tempted to use energy drinks. A time comes when you cannot do without them. They are also very dangerous because they contain alot of glucose and can easily slide you into obesity, hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, among other diseases,” Ibingira cautions. Michael Kananura, the spokesperson of the traffic directorate supplements on Kwamusi, Bayiga and Ibingira’s voices, advising that when driving, every part of your body must be in the best health condition to increase your concentration levels.
When fatigued, some body parts don’t function effectively especially the brain. Some of the registered crashes are caused by fatigue. For example, you cannot want to drive a return journey of 500km and make a return journey. “It is difficult to measure fatigue but in the end, it’s your personal judgement that you’re tired. After two hours of nonstop driving, park somewhere safe and relax so that your body is refreshed to drive again. Avoid using drugs and energy drinks because your body is naturally made and reaches a point where it can’t be stretched beyond its limits. For a crash to occur, it takes as less as two seconds not only to kill people but also die,” Kananura advises. Fatigue, unlike any other road crash risks factors on the road, is purely managed by the driver. However much traffic police enforces, it is a lifestyle and personal issue. As a driver, you must manage fatigue carefully. Otherwise, you do not want to sleep behind the steering wheel.
