Driving at night is dangerous. You probably have known that long ago, especially with the country’s pothole-ridden roads and the constant tales of armed robbery. But what you probably do not know is that beyond potholes and possible armed robbery, driving at night for three hours has the same effect as drink-driving.
According to researchers in the United Kingdom, just three hours behind the wheel at night can make motorists drive as badly as a drunk. Tiredness after a few hours of driving has the same effect as drink-driving.
This, certainly, is no good news for frequent night travellers in a country like Nigeria where motorists drive continuously for over five hours without resting.
In the UK, it is estimated that one-fifth of all traffic accidents are due to sleepiness behind the wheel. And one in three motorists in the country admits to nodding off while driving at night. There are no such statistics in Nigeria, but cases of motorists nodding off while driving is not uncommon.
The experts who carried out the research in the UK now want governments to impose a maximum two-hour limit on continuous night-time driving in a bid to curb accidents and death rates.
A study last year by experts at Cardiff University called for newly-qualified drivers to be banned from the roads at night, a move that could save 200 lives a year in Britain and result in 1,700 fewer serious injuries.
The Mail of London reports that similar schemes already exist in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Unlike alcohol, police have no way of measuring whether a driver is affected by fatigue.
To assess the extent to which tiredness hinders driving performance, researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands recruited 14 healthy young men aged 21 to 25.
Under supervision, each one drove for two, four and eight hours at a time through the night. They had to maintain a constant 80mph on the motorway and remain in the centre of their traffic lane.
Researchers used video recordings to monitor the safety of their driving. After the experiment, they compared motorists’ performances with what’s already known about the effect alcohol can have on a driver’s safety.
The results, published in the Journal of Sleep Research, showed that after just two hours behind the wheel, the drivers were already making the same mistakes they would if they had 0.05 per cent blood alcohol content - more than half the UK legal drink drive limit of 80milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.
At three hours, their performance corresponded to 0.08 cent blood alcohol content - the national limit and by four-and-a-half hours it was equivalent to 0.10 per cent.
The researchers said, “Our data show that drivers should take sleepiness behind the wheel seriously. It is one of the primary causes of accidents on motorways.
“Yet drivers themselves are sometimes unaware of sleepiness, reduced alertness and corresponding impaired driving.
“Measures such as playing loud music or opening the window are of limited use. A maximum continuous night-time driving duration of two hours should be recommended.”
A national 10-year study of highway fatalities released in May 2010 in US also notes that driving after dark is the single most-dangerous risk a teenage driver can take and is more likely to result in death than drinking, speeding or disregarding a seat belt.
The report, conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute, used federal traffic fatality data from 1999 to 2008, a period in which the number of traffic deaths declined nationwide.
Safer cars, safer highways, seat-belt laws and drink-driving enforcement have been linked to the drop in fatalities – all factors in darkness and daylight alike.
Among drivers 20 and older, alcohol was a clear culprit in the proportional increase in night time deaths. Not so with teenagers, among whom there was a greater increase but no corresponding jump in deaths that could be attributed to drink- driving.
Bernie Fette, one of the study’s authors believes the use of cell phones behind the wheel has not helped matters for teenagers. He said, “Whenever you combine the night time danger and the cell phone danger with inexperience, you have created a perfect storm.”
“We have a test to see whether someone’s been drinking, but there is no test to see whether you’ve been on your cell phone,” Fette said. “Because teenagers have grown up with these devices in their hands, they feel a comfort level and a very false sense of security. They will tell you, ‘I can text with my phone still in my pocket, so I certainly can text while I’m driving.”
The report adds to data amassed by US Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, who has crusaded for more than a year about the dangers of texting and cell phone use.
The website, www.aboutdriving.co.uk advises that if you’re planning on night driving, you should familiarise yourself with some of the dangers and also some of the best ways of handling driving in the dark. Remember that crash risks increase during the hours of darkness, so for your own safety and that of others, take extra care.
The driving advisory website advises that if you know that you’re going to be driving at night, you should ensure that you’re fully prepared for the trip. It is common sense to make sure that you’re fully rested before setting off as it’s far easier to become sleepy in darkness than in daylight.
The Sector Commander, Federal Road Safety Commission, Lagos Command, Mr. Jonas Agwu, says that the FRSC discourages night driving because of the inherent dangers involved. These include poor visibility and the difficulties involved in rescue operations (which at times are caused by poor visibility) in case of an accident.
He adds that the state of the country’s roads, lack of functional lightning system in vehicles and the tendency for the average Nigerian driver to ignore traffic rules are also some of the reasons why the commission discourages night travels. He asks, “If the average driver cannot obey simple traffic rules in the day when visibility is ok, do you think he will obey it at night when visibility is poor and he believes that no one is watching him?”
Eye specialists say that driving at night is dangerous, as the darkness affects the vision of motorists. An optometrist, Dr. Kelechukwu Ahaiwe, says that driving at night when there are no natural lights leads to constriction of eye’s field of vision thus making the driver to see only few objects on the periphery
Ahaiwe, who is the Head of the Optical Department, Mercy Eye Centre, Abak, Akwa Ibom State, explained that glare from the headlamps from oncoming vehicles and from rear view mirrors also affects the vision of motorists at nights and can lead to temporary loss of vision which is dangerous as it takes a driver a long time to recover.
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