Junior Michael Z. Guo gripped the wheel of his 2013 Toyota Corolla one afternoon last October as his eyelids grew heavier while traveling down Highway 85 on his way to a volunteering commitment at a Cupertino senior center. The sun shone through the window and slowly lulled him into a light sleep. After he exited Highway 85, a few yards past a stoplight, Guo began dozing at the wheel. Suddenly, he felt his car crash into a center median. The crash jerked Guo wide awake. His eyes flew open.
The night before, Guo had stayed up until 4 a.m. finishing homework. His lack of sleep caused him to fall asleep at the wheel, resulting in an accident that he was lucky to survive.
“I have no idea how I managed to survive driving the entire length of the highway,” Guo said. “I kept on dozing off every other minute.”
Guo’s brush with sleep-deprived driving is hardly unique. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2015 poll, an estimated 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year.
The accidents result in an estimated 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries and $12.5 billion in monetary losses. This phenomenon, commonly referred to as “drowsy driving,” causes drivers to have short attention spans and lose focus on the road. According to an article on Psych Central by Rick Nauert Ph.D, adolescent drivers are more likely to have accidents if they get fewer than six hours of sleep.
Guo said he had been getting few hours of sleep for several weeks prior to this incident. He had already been frequently falling asleep in class.
On the day of his accident, the roads were not as crowded in mid-afternoon, but there was still a steady stream of cars.
“I didn’t wake up until I was scraping the traffic light pole because I had drifted two lanes to the lane on the very left,” Guo said.
As soon as he woke up, Guo clenched the wheel and swerved into the intersection. He finally came to a stop at the Cupertino post office. Luckily for him, there were no cars or pedestrians in his car’s path. The only damage was to Guo’s Corolla. All the airbags in the car had been triggered.
“The moment I awoke and figured out what was going on, I was just thinking, ‘This can’t be happening right now,’” Guo said. “I knew my parents had every right to be angry with me, especially because it was entirely my own fault.”
Guo’s car’s right rear-view mirror was completely detached, his front tire was broken because the metal from the frame of the right door had punctured the rubber and his passenger door was stuck shut. The missing tire frame had flown out into the middle of the street, and the suspension was damaged. In general, most of the car was totaled.
Guo recalls feeling dazed in the minutes following the incident.
“It was so unfathomable to me, even though I [had] drifted a couple [of] times before,” Guo said. “One minute, I was driving in my own lane; the next minute, my car is uncontrollably swerving into an intersection.”
Half a year later, Guo said the accident taught him to make he sure never closes his eyes while he is driving. He strives to finish his homework earlier in order to fit in more hours of sleep before school nights.
Many students, especially upperclassmen with heavy class loads, work late into the night and arrive at school the next day having slept only two to three hours.
Fortunately, Guo walked away from this accident with no injuries. He was shaken up, and has since been more aware while driving on the road.
“I am so grateful to be alive,” Guo said. “It could have easily been a whole lot worse.”
After several months, Guo has a new car and is taking extra precautions behind the wheel. He often tells his friends to avoid driving when fatigued.
“Life is short, and it’s such a blessing that we can live every day,” Guo said. “Life is frail and is easily broken or taken away, so don’t let procrastination and lack of sleep be the reason you get it all taken away.”
