The Long-Haul Driver Who Has Not Slept
A driver has been on the road since 04:00 and it is now 15:30, with only a 20-minute stop for coffee and a sandwich. He is on a straight inter-city road, has been yawning for the last hour, and twice in the last ten minutes has 'come to' and realised he cannot remember the last few kilometres. He has not drunk alcohol. He has a delivery deadline and decides to push on to the next town, about 90 km away, saying he will open the window and turn up the radio.
1. Assess the driver's state and explain why his planned countermeasures will not work.
Read the worked answer
The two episodes of 'lost' kilometres are the decisive symptom: they are micro-sleeps, not simple tiredness. A driver who cannot recall the last few kilometres has already been asleep at the wheel for seconds at a time. At 90 km/h a vehicle covers 25 m per second, so a three-second lapse is 75 m of blind travel.
Why the plan fails:
- Opening the window and turning up the radio produce a brief arousal, not restored alertness. They fade within minutes.
- Coffee delays sleepiness but does not remove the accumulated sleep debt; it cannot prevent a micro-sleep once the debt is high.
- The remaining 90 km is roughly an hour of driving - exactly the window in which another lapse is most likely.
The only effective countermeasure for a driver in this state is to stop and sleep. A short nap of 15–20 minutes in a safe parking area, followed by coffee, is the recognised stop-gap; continuing to drive is not a defensible choice.
2. What are the legal and safety consequences if he continues and causes a collision, and what should he have done differently from the start?
Read the worked answer
If he continues and crashes: fatigue is treated as a driver-fault condition. The driver chose to drive while unfit, knowing he had already lapsed. That supports a finding of fault and can be pursued as a serious traffic offence, with civil liability for injury and damage. Insurance may contest cover where the driver was demonstrably unfit. Any injured third party is the driver's responsibility.
What he should have done:
- Planned the journey against rest requirements: a break of at least 15 minutes every two hours, and a proper rest period for a long day.
- Not started at 04:00 after an inadequate night's sleep.
- At the first yawn and the first memory gap, stopped at the first safe place - not 'at the next town'.
- Told his employer or client the deadline could not be met safely; a deadline is never a defence.
Defensive principle: fatigue is the one impairment where the impaired person is the last to notice. The memory gap is the warning that must be obeyed immediately.