I used to drive passenger coaches to transport kids to a Christian camp. It was about 500 miles each way from our start point near Detroit to the camp in the middle of the Upper Peninsula. To get the kids to camp at lunchtime on Saturday, we would depart about 2am Saturday morning.
The first driver shift was OK because the kids were all excited to see old friends and loud. We would make a pickup at about 3:30am. The shift was quiet, dark and boring. We always made sure the guy riding shotgun was awake to keep an eye on the driver just to be sure. Easy time to drop off.
Good chance lives were saved with that choice...