Microsleep — My Personal Experience of A Potent Driving Hazard

Stay alert and stay alive into 2025.

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Little things do matter and cause great consequences.

The above quip is from my high school maths teacher. Back then, Mr. Aŕaroḿi used that phrase to drive home some tricks and quirks of mathematics.

He also used this to illustrate that seemingly insignificant choices today can significantly affect our future.

For example -9 * -9 will not give you the same answer as -9 * 9. While the former product raises you by 81, the latter puts you back by 81 (that is -81).

No where is the impact of small things more immediate and poignant than the risks and hazards posed by microsleeping while driving.

Try as we may, no man can cheat nature. Microsleeping will catch up on you if you’ve had a sleepless night, or been at work without a respite of sufficient hours of sleep and rest.

Drivers and all workers are susceptible to micro-sleep and its attendant hazards and accident risks.

Writing in SleepFoundation.org, Jay Summer and Dr Anis Rehman describe microsleep as follows,

The term microsleep refers to very short periods of sleep that can be measured in seconds, rather than minutes or hours…. A person might nod off during microsleep or keep their eyes open and continue to look awake. Regardless of how someone appears during a microsleep episode, their brain is not processing external information like usual.

In their excellent article, the authors described microsleep, its causes, the risks it poses and how to ward it off.

Picture by the author.

My Personal Experience of Microsleep

I was seated at the back of the Toyota Sienna the with two others. Beside the driver was a soldier. He was our escort. In all, seven of us were heading home from work.