Merging Into Life: The Facts About Drowsy Driving

[00:02:24]
Jennifer Pearce: Thank you for having me.

[00:02:25]
Amanda Greene: Could you tell us a little bit about your sister and what she was like?

[00:02:30]
Jennifer Pearce: She was brilliant. She was smart, straight A student, very well liked, very empathetic. She was an athlete. She was interested in her church and community service. She was just really a great human being and she was very loved, not only by me, but she has a lot of friends that are still very tight today that honor her on a regular basis still. Whatever they’re doing, she’s always still present with them. And I think because of who she was in life, her death is more impactful in some ways. This is horrible to say, but she’s kind of a great poster child for traffic safety because she did everything right usually. She was even president of Students Against Drunk Driving in high school, so she was around the ideas of destructive decisions, and still something like this could happen. And I think that that’s important for people to know: that you don’t have to be out there doing the wrong things on a regular basis for you to find yourself in a situation one day. It only takes one time, one day to lose your life.

[00:03:35]
Amanda Greene: Can you tell us about the day that the tragic accident or crash happened?

[00:03:41]
Jennifer Pearce: Yeah. Well, first of all, let me start with addressing why people in traffic safety don’t want to call it an accident. They want to call it a crash, and the reason is because it’s very preventable, right? Accidents imply that there was nothing you could do to prevent your circumstances. In the case of drowsy driving, there’s absolutely things that the driver can do to make sure that they’re not involved in that kind of crash. So, that’s the first thing. And then as far as Nicole’s last 24 hours, she had gone to a party. I think all the other students that were in the car were also at that party. They had stayed up sort of late the night before. I think they were dancing, listening to music or whatever. And then they had all decided they were going to go skiing the next day and they drove from Virginia Tech to Snowshoe early in the morning.

I think they were all pretty decent skiers, so they were skiing Black Diamond runs, which is physically exerting. They had gone and eaten and then got back in the car. Because they had all stayed up late they had all fallen asleep in the car. And then the driver did as well. He drove off the side of the road hitting a tree impacting Nicole’s side of the car. All four boys had significant injuries and were hospitalized, but Nicole was the only one who succumbed to her injuries. And my family, we were all in different places, so we all were driving from different areas of the Northeast towards this hospital, and we were getting updates somewhat regularly. About 20 minutes outside of the hospital, we got a call that she didn’t make it. And so none of my family members got to say goodbye.

[00:05:33]
Amanda Greene: Jen, I am so sorry for your loss. So over time, you took your pain from this awful tragedy and turned it into a message to help others. How did you find the courage to do that?

[00:05:47]
Jennifer Pearce: My mom was sort of the driver in this. She wanted other people to know that this was a thing. We, almost right away, within a few months, started giving out coffee and pamphlets about the dangers of drowsy driving on rest stops on 95 as a family and as her friends. We would take over these rest stops a couple of times a year and just stop drivers and tell them all about the drowsy driving issues on the road. We would get a lot of truck drivers. We’d get a lot of people. We’re from Maryland, so there were a lot of people traveling the East Coast Corridor on 95 and a lot of snowbirds coming back and forth, but when we were out at the truck stops or the rest stops, we were anecdotally finding out that the numbers were significant.

Everyone knew of someone that was impacted or they themselves had fallen asleep. I think that is what drove us to talk about it more because it wasn’t being talked about. Even if we just saved one life, that was one family that didn’t have to go through what we went through, and we knew how significant that could be to that one family.

[00:07:02]
Amanda Greene: We hear about a lot of other different kinds of impairments, but do you think people don’t think of drowsy driving in the same way?

[00:07:08]
Jennifer Pearce: Yeah, there’s a lot of reasons around that. I think one, there’s a psychology around sleep. Somehow we’ve sort of made it cool to power through without sleep. It’s not something people talk about. It’s not only a public safety issue, but also a public health issue. There’s studies out that say that they’re working towards all kinds of cures for diseases, and there’s all kinds of talk about health and food and water, but sleep, which is a necessity for life, is not really talked about. And if anything, when it is, it’s sort of cool to not sleep or to stay up and binge-watch your favorite show and then go to work or push as many things in your life as possible. I call it busy shaming. We shame people to be busier and busier, and that’s sort of the accolades you get in life. That’s a problem, right? That people have empty tanks when it comes to sleep.

But then when it comes to driving, either people are completely unaware that drowsy driving is deadly and that the numbers are significant. Or they have this mentality that even if they know they’re tired, that they have superhuman strengths around sleep because they do it all the time in other areas of their life. So it’s an issue. Most people I talk to have no idea how much of an issue it is on the road.

[00:08:29]
Amanda Greene: What would you like listeners to take away from your story?

[00:08:33]
Jennifer Pearce: I think sometimes people are willing to risk their own life and they think they’re invincible. But when you put yourself in that scenario and if something should happen to you, it is life altering for everyone that loves you. We are fundamentally different, every single person in my family for generations, right? I have nieces and nephews that are too young to remember Nicole, that are affected to this day. We have friends of hers that are affected to this day because of her crash. My parents will never be the same. My siblings and I will never be the same. It’s life altering. And I hope that if you’re willing to put yourself at risk, that you would think twice about doing that to somebody else in your family, your loved ones. And I hope if they take anything away from this podcast that the next time they get in the car or behind the wheel, they think about that. And that again, covers all traffic safety issues. It’s not just drowsy, distracted, drunk, prescription drugs. All those things can have the same impact on a family.

[00:09:43]
Amanda Greene: Thank you so much for coming on and sharing Nicole’s story and remembering her and honoring her in this way and raising awareness in this way because it is an important message that everyone needs to receive.

[00:09:57]
Jennifer Pearce: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you for spreading the word about drowsy driving.

[00:10:03]
Amanda Greene: Jennifer’s heartbreaking story is just one example of what’s at stake when it comes to road safety. Now let’s look at the scope of the problem.

[00:10:14]
Alec Slatky: I’m Alec Slatky. I work here at AAA Northeast in our public affairs department. I’ve been here 10 years trying every day to do what we can to make the road a safer place.

[00:10:25]
Amanda Greene: One of those things is studies around traffic safety. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety did a study on drowsy driving. It found that people are not a good judge of how tired they really are. When drivers rated their level of drowsiness as low, most of them, a full 75% were in fact moderately or severely drowsy. In the study, how were you able to determine how tired the participants actually were?

[00:10:54]
Alec Slatky: There were two measures of drowsiness. One was subjective, just how drowsy people said they were on a nine point scale. The other was objective that looked at how often was a driver’s eyes closed in a certain period. And a lot of the times when people said they weren’t very drowsy, that objective measure found, no, you’re pretty drowsy. Your eyes are closed more often than we would like when you need to be looking at the road.

[00:11:21]
Amanda Greene: Wow, that’s really fascinating and I feel like this is something that isn’t really talked about a lot. There’s a lot of conversation and advocacy surrounding drunk driving, even distracted driving, but drowsy driving is just not something that you hear about. Why do you think that this isn’t discussed with the same level of seriousness or as often?

[00:11:43]
Alec Slatky: I think there are a few reasons. I think the first is that the crash statistics don’t accurately reflect how prevalent drowsy driving is. So if you look at the police reports on crashes, they’re going to say about one to two percent of crashes are related to drowsy driving, which makes sense. If you’re drowsy and you get in a crash, you’re probably going to have some adrenaline pumping, and you’re probably not going to tell an officer, “Hey, I was falling asleep before the crash.” You might not even realize you were falling asleep before the crash. But we’ve done studies that look at in- camera video and other crash reports that are very, very thoroughly investigated and found that drowsy driving is way more prevalent than statistics would lead us to believe. In fact, about one in six fatal crashes is related to drowsy driving. That’s way, way more than the estimates we have from crash reports.

[00:12:38]
Amanda Greene: Do your findings of drowsy sleeping say that it is a similar level of impairment as distracted driving, drunk driving?

[00:12:44]
Alec Slatky: It is a similar level of danger to drunk driving because if you get the recommended, say, seven to eight to nine hours of sleep a night, I mean, that’s great. If you get a little bit less, your crash risk is elevated. And then if you get significantly less, the risk goes way up. So if you get four to five hours of sleep in a night, your crash risk is about four times what it would be if you got the recommended seven plus hours, that’s like a drunk driving risk. And then if you sleep less than four hours in a night, it’s about 11 times the crash risk, so that’s an even more impaired drunk driver. I think it’s very important to set an example for your family, for your friends, that it’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to take a nap.

I can remember a time when I was up on a college visit. We had left Friday night, my dad and I, we drove five hours up, probably got to a hotel at 1:00 a.m. We went on the college tour the next morning, and then we were heading down. And after an hour or so, my dad said, “I’m pulling over and taking a nap.” So then he switched over. I got the keys. I was driving for maybe a half hour, and I said, “I’m tired. I’m pulling over.” And we both napped in the parking lot of a rest area for probably a couple hours, and then we got home safe. And I think that was a good example for him to send to me that you don’t need to push through it, you can pull over. You can keep yourself safe. And that’s a lesson that clearly I remember to this day, and I think it’s something that’s worth sharing with friends and family as well.

[00:14:20]
Amanda Greene: So I think a common thing to do is grab a coffee or something with caffeine for a little boost. What’s your take on that?

[00:14:27]
Alec Slatky: The evidence shows that caffeine gives a small boost, but it’s not going to cure the reality that you are drowsy. And all the other tricks, having the windows down, blasting the AC, chewing gum, blasting the radio, none of those things have any evidence that they work in any substantial way. Maybe the benefit is for 20, 30 seconds, but after that you’re back to square one.

[00:14:53]
Amanda Greene: So the only thing that really works is pulling over to a safe location and taking a little nap?

[00:14:59]
Alec Slatky: Naps are golden. I think people should make sure they’re in a safe place, absolutely. But if you take a half hour nap, an hour nap, there’s every reason to believe that you’ll wake up and you’ll be refreshed. Ideally, you get enough sleep that you don’t need the nap, but if you do need one, it’s really the only thing that’s going to seriously help you.

[00:15:21]
Amanda Greene: Other than drowsy driving, what are some other driving habits that are very dangerous?

[00:15:26]
Alec Slatky: Obviously, impaired driving is bad. People know distracted driving is bad. But what they might not realize about distracted driving is that it’s not just when you’re driving. Our foundation did some research and found that if you say look at a phone while you’re at a red light, you’re checking a text, you think you’re being safe by doing it while you’re at a red light and stopped, your reaction time is actually impaired for up to 27 seconds after that distraction ends. So even though you might put the phone down, the light turns green a couple seconds later, and then you speed off, your mind is not necessarily fully recovered from the act of looking at the text.

[00:16:06]
Amanda Greene: So, if I’m at a stoplight and I check my text messages – which I think I would’ve considered that safe – I’m still distracted even after I put it down and the light has turned green because what, I’m lost in thought about it or determining how to respond?

[00:16:19]
Alec Slatky: Exactly. And one of the clearest measures of distraction is reaction time. And the study found pretty clearly that the reaction time penalty for being distracted, it didn’t end when the distraction ended. So your mind is still going to be on something related to that text, even if you’re not consciously thinking of it necessarily, your brain still might not be back to what we would hope is normal driving mode.

[00:16:46]
Amanda Greene: Okay, focus on the road and make sure you get enough sleep. That sounds easy enough.

[00:16:50]
Alec Slatky: It’s easy to make substantial changes in your habits that let you drive more safely. And I probably did that when I started working at AAA because it was my job to go through the newspapers every morning to see what articles were out there about transportation and traffic safety. And every day, here’s an article on page 27, three paragraphs, driver critically injured. Page 10, driver killed in a crash. Page 12, pedestrian killed in a crash. Unfortunately, it’s so common that it’s not front page news, but it kills so many people and injures so many people across this country that we’ve got to make at least whatever changes you can make as a driver.

[00:17:36]
Amanda Greene: How often should you take breaks during a long road trip?

[00:17:40]
Alec Slatky: We recommend every two hours or a hundred miles or so, but really whenever you need to, in addition to that, is very appropriate.

[00:17:48]
Amanda Greene: During which hours of the day are drowsy driving crashes most likely to occur?

[00:17:53]
Alec Slatky: Late night and overnight are the times when drowsy driving is most common.

[00:17:58]
Amanda Greene: True or false, teenagers experience more peer pressure and are therefore more likely to drive drowsy.

[00:18:05]
Alec Slatky: Teenagers are more likely to drive drowsy, but I feel like everyone experiences peer pressure and we want to make sure nobody is on the road while they’re falling asleep.

[00:18:16]
Amanda Greene: Can you name one activity that people might not consider distracted driving, but would still definitely cause distraction?

[00:18:24]
Alec Slatky: Talking on a hands-free cell phone is something that might not take your eyes off the road, it might not take your hands off the wheel, but it certainly will take your mind off the task of driving.

[00:18:35]
Amanda Greene: Speaking of, what’s the safest way to handle a phone call while driving?

[00:18:39]
Alec Slatky: To not. Send it to voicemail. Have that alert on if you get a text that says, “Hey, I’m driving and I’ll get to your message when I’m at my destination.” If you can pull over to a parking lot, that’s great. If not, wait until you get to wherever you’re going because that’s how crashes occur when you take your eyes off the road and hands off the wheel.

[00:19:00]
Amanda Greene: Thank you, Alec, for joining us today and sharing all kinds of road safety tips to help us have better safe driving practices. And thank you to Jennifer Pearce for coming on and sharing her story. So the thing to remember, even if you aren’t driving is to get enough sleep. If you are getting behind the wheel and you have any of these symptoms – you’re having trouble keeping your eyes open, you’re catching yourself drifting from your lane or all of a sudden you realize you don’t remember driving the last few miles – do the right thing and pull over. You’ve been listening to Merging Into Life where we navigate life’s milestones, one episode at a time. Brought to you by AAA Northeast, with assistance from JAR Audio. I’m your host, Amanda Green. If you’re learning as much as I am, follow us wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review. We’d love to know what you think. Email us at podcast@AAAnortheast.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily the views of AAA Northeast, AAA and, or its affiliates.