Posted on 03/30/2017 8:29:24 PM PDT by Timpanagos1
Well...when I was 20 years old, I once stayed up for 72 hours straight, working a night shift in the military, driving in my car nonstop from Florida to New England to go home on leave, then partying all day and going out on a date that night, and driving 50 miles home at 0200.
I feel asleep at the wheel with no warning and awoke as my car was tearing through a grass median on an interstate.
I could have killed that girl in the car, other people on the road, or myself. It was stupid, and I did learn from it.
Another time as a 20 year old, I was trying to make the New England to Florida run in one drive after not enough sleep, I was weaving in my lane down in Virginia, and I stopped to get a cup of coffee, and as I was walking in at a truck stop, a trucker said “Are you driving that little yellow sports car? If you are, you should get some coffee or pull off for a while.” It was good advice, but I was too young and stupid to hear it.
Well, the coffee didn’t help. I got back on the highway, and just a few miles down the road again, I was starting to nod.
I was in the left hand lane of I95, and I saw headlights coming at me, and that woke me up really quickly. I realized it wasn’t coming at me, it was a car upside down on its roof in the left lane, and the headlights were pointing into traffic.
I pulled over, and ran across the highway, fully thinking there was going to be something terrible I was going to see, some mangled person. When I reached the car, before I could bend over, a bare forearm and hand came out of the crushed down window, then another, and before I could even get over being completely startled, a guy with long hair wearing only blue jeans and no shirt or shoes dragged himself out and stood up next to me as I stared at him. (I have no memory of anything else at that time, cars that might have been zooming by, but the look of this wild eyed guy) I finally managed to blurt out “Are you okay?” and he said “Yeah...I think so.”
When I asked what happened, he said he had fallen asleep.
After that, I had no trouble staying awake for a while. But as the sun was coming up, I was driving through Georgia, and was nodding off. This time, I pulled my MG off the road, put my seat back, and leaned back to take a nap.
I awoke in a terrified panic, reaching for the wheel. It was a sunny morning, I had barely fallen asleep, and as I blinked in the beautiful sunshine, I realized I had pulled off the road.
I had dropped immediately into sleep and dreamed I was still driving down the road and fallen asleep at the wheel. My heart was pounding, and I broke out in a sweat. Needless to say, I made it the rest of the way down.
I don’t do that anymore.
Most of us worked or are working two jobs. It’s the only thing you can do when you have a family.
Where are all the racist Freepers today who were yelling “DRUNK MEXICAN” on the original thread?
After a 3pm to 7am double shift I had an hour drive home. Half way home I woke up to dried ears of corn smacking my Pinto at 70 mph. Fortunately I had swerved right into a flat field. Later that summer I fell asleep a stop sign.
After that I learned to take a nap.
“he is 20 years old... how can he be fatigued?”
Not involving this case but you would be surprised how many teens/young adults get fatigued. Several years back, there was a single vehicle fatality at our local high school. Senior girl.. honor roll.. AP classes... fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree ( a half a block from the high school). Why? She had been studying for four AP exams and several honor tests. No drugs, no alcohol, no texting... just a motivated and exhausted kid trying to get good grades and get into college. When I went to college, I worked 32 plus hours a week and took 12 credits AND assisted greatly at home. There were times (especially at the end of a night or during finals.. that I was so tired that I felt sick. *** Just saying that youth doesn’t trump the body’s exhaustion level.
Man, thanks for publishing that, MySA. Now, you’ve insulted a lot of high school football players.
Lots of human hazards, too. Bikers and Sports Car nuts going too fast. Locals who exhibit little tolerance for either. A part of Texas remote enough to use the "Six Pack" method of distance estimation. "It's 2 six packs here to Uvalde..."
20 years old and still in high school?
I do not see how him having played football is important to this story.
The thing about pulling over to sleep is a hole cops harassing you.
In TX, anyway.
Statistically, mexicans cause many, many accidents where I live.
That’s not rayciss, it’s discernment.
Remember the fire in Providence RI some years back? It was what, around 100 dead? Each of those live were worth only about fifteen minutes of 'community service' to the black robed tyrant who sentenced the responsible party in a plea deal.
The legal 'profession' constantly decries 'taking the law into one's own hands' out of one side of their mouths, while simultaneously, by such 'judgments' as these, virtually ensure that very outcome out of the other. The hubris of these braying jackasses is nothing short of absolutely jaw-dropping...
the infowarrior
Yep, the daughter of a good friend of my wife’s was killed by one. But I do try to wait for the facts before I state the obvious.
Now, on criminals with punctuation marks in the names, I’ll be the first to go with the stereotype.
There was a string of foreign tourists being killed and robbed at rest stops in Florida. So there are worse things than being hassled by cops who compensate for their physical inadequacies.
“Yo - the punctuation mark ain’t silent!”
Not for the driver.
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