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Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

> You should never get behind the wheel if there's a chance you'll fall asleep!

So, I should never drive? Not OP, but I experience the same thing. Driving just makes me tired. I've tried running A/C at full cold, caffeine, loud music, audiobooks, etc. Nothing helps. The strange thing is, outside of driving I don't get tired or want to fall asleep except at bedtime. I don't drive when I'm drowsy. Driving make me drowsy. The bad thing about it is I usually don't realize that I'm getting sleepy until after I've dozed off once. Then I've got to keep myself awake long enough to get to the next rest stop. 20 minute nap and I'm good to go for another few hours.

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> So, I should never drive?

> The bad thing about it is I usually don't realize that I'm getting sleepy until after I've dozed off once.

I'm not trying to be rude, but this sounds reckless. You absolutely should not be driving while you have this issue. Also, consider that you may have a sleep disorder.

No, you should never drive.

I appreciate that this sucks if you live in an environment that requires you to drive, but you are way too blasé about something that runs a decent risk of killing someone, and is absolutely not normal.

Driving in general comes with a decent risk of killing someone. You probably shouldn't do it either.

no but the comment that this comment is replying to is not a normal case of a drowsy driver - it is definitely not normal to not know you are drowsy until you already fall asleep, and that is wildly dangerous

> So, I should never drive?

> The bad thing about it is I usually don't realize that I'm getting sleepy until after I've dozed off once

In England this knowledge potentially tips your actions from accidental death into manslaughter.

You need to fix this.

> So, I should never drive?

As other people have said.. yes, you should never drive until you get this issue taken care of.

Uhh- the thing about not knowing you're sleepy until you fall asleep is not normal. The other discussion in this thread about whether or not its morally OK to drive drowsy does not apply to your situation. Definitely do not drive until you've had a sleep study done and been cleared by a doctor. The usual situation that is being discussed in this thread is where you are already tired and drowsy and decide to drive because you don't have a choice. Your situation sounds like a different medical condition of some sort, and (not a lawyer but) the fact that you are aware of this condition might mean you'd still be guilty of the same crime as someone who decided to drive when drowsy and fell asleep before causing an accident.

Get a sleep study done! You may be surprised, and even without insurance, the at home sleep studies aren't too pricey (pro tip, you can usually plug in the unit to your computer and dumb a copy of the raw data before you return it to your dr)

Have you considered talking with a doctor about this issue?

> The bad thing about it is I usually don't realize that I'm getting sleepy until after I've dozed off once.

This sounds pretty dangerous

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