Road trips are fun with friends and family. Some people also enjoy their own company on road trips and travel solo. We often hurry to reach our destination and can’t decide how many breaks we should take when driving.
Many road safety specialists suggest that continuously driving for a longer period of time is not safe. We are humans and have some limitations. No matter how skilled a driver you are, tiredness will hamper your concentration and can make you vulnerable to accidents.
So, in this post, we will talk about how often one should take breaks while driving on a long journey.
1) How Many Breaks Should You Take?
The requirement for a break is different for night and daytime. If you are driving in day time and on a free road, then I would recommend you take 20 20-minute breaks every 2 hours. And if you are driving on a busy road, then you should decrease the time interval of breaks from 2 hours to 1.5 hours as on a busy road you need more relaxed time to keep your concentration on track.
Also, driving for extensive hours like more than 8 hours in a day can result in fatigue, even if someone takes proper breaks and results in slow reaction and decision making.
2) How Many Breaks Should You Take?
Driving at night is harder for drivers as it is our time for sleep and the chances of accidents increase because of low vision and sleepiness. Scientists say that our natural body clock is designed in such a way that we will naturally fall asleep at night and awake during the day. So, if you feel like sleeping while driving, then take a break and take a short nap of half an hour, it will boost your energy, and at night time, we should take more frequent breaks than at night time to avoid sleepiness and maintain energy.
3) What If I Eat A Large Meal Before Driving, And How Many Breaks Should I Take In That Case?
Generally, staying alert and waking up is hard after consuming a large meal, if post-sunset, then it becomes more dangerous to drive. We recommend you keep your food light and nutritious before driving and avoid eating heavy and full stomachs. However, if you eat a large meal and then some conditions occur that mandate you to drive, in that scenario, you should take breaks more frequently and like 1.5 hour interval time for every 20 minutes break.
4) What If Someone Is On Medication?
If you are suffering from any disease that requires you to consume medicines which can cause drowsiness and sleepiness, then the best advice would be to hand over the steering wheel to someone who knows driving and can drive well. Otherwise, the chance of accidents will increase significantly and even taking enough breaks won’t make much difference because the drowsiness is due to medicines not because of tiredness.
Conclusion
There are many instances in our lives when we have to drive for a long time to reach our destination. In this post, we have mentioned a few tips to reduce accident chances and make your journey enjoyable. Breaks play an essential part in dealing with fatigue and tiredness from continuous travel.
We know there must be some other great tips as well. So, if you want to share some tips then feel free to email us. Also, share this post with others to spread awareness related to driving and taking breaks.
