New Test For Sleep Deprived Drivers

A BLOOD TEST FOR TIREDNESS IS BEING DEVELOPED, AIMED AT KEEPING THE ROADS SAFER

You tired? Nah!

There’s a new test coming out in the next couple of years – in the form of a blood test – which will show if drivers or riders are too tired to pay proper attention to the road and are in fact too sleepy to operate their vehicle safely. There are many risk factors on the road, drink drivers, drivers using their mobile phones and now tired drivers is being factored in as a red flag for other motorists and motorcyclists.

The new blood test, pioneered in Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, will reveal how long the person being tested has been awake for. It is apparently 99% accurate in showing when people have been awake for more than 24 hours. The way it works is interesting, there are apparently five bio markers in the blood which can be tracked and used to see how tired the person being tested actually is. The Monash University research was done in 2021 on real drivers doing tests after different levels of sleep. Drivers who had only had three hours sleep were shown to be up to 10 times more likely to be in a crash, than those who had had eight hours sleep.

Go Back To Bed, Sleepy Head
Drivers driving while very tired, is already acknowledged to be a serious cause of road crashes and research has shown that someone being awake for up to 17 hours before driving, can be as impaired in their concentration and reactions, as someone with a 50mg/100ml blood alcohol level!

Exhaustion is cited by police research as being a factor in 2% of serious vehicle crashes, but so far there hasn’t been an accurate test for tired driving so it has been difficult to exactly pin point the effect of tiredness on drivers, so they could be worse than they appear to date. Two road safety organisations, RoSPA and Brake, are convinced that driving while tired could be a contributory factor in maybe as much as 20% of accidents. It would appear that driving on less than five hours sleep could be as dangerous as being over the drink drive limit.

This doesn’t look as though it is going to mean the beginning of randomised road side tiredness testing anytime soon – more likely a post incident blood test should be available in around two years and a pre-emptive test will have to wait around five years.

Sounds Useful?
The Chair of the BMF, Jim Freeman sounds broadly in favour, saying:
“This sounds useful. We always recommend taking breaks and not riding too long, bikes have been compared to flying light aircraft and helos in terms of the levels of awareness and mental demands made, it’s an active thing to do. Modern cars, with driver aids, on the other hand positively encourage drivers to go to sleep, so this is something whose time may have come. ”

All this apart however, it is not without its problems to introduce mass driver fatigue testing. Firstly laws would have to be brought in to legislate on unacceptable levels of exhaustion and a way found for people to check their tiredness against the proposed limit. It is also potentially difficult to create a negative public atmosphere against tired drivers, when most people will have driven tired at some point in their lives, due to circumstances which may not always be under their control like having a baby or toddler, being a carer, having sleep problems, working a night shift etc, the list is long.

Deep Sleep
We’d all prefer to have had a wonderful eight hours peaceful sleep but are not always able to achieve this, however much we might want it. Sadly, being tired is not currently grounds for a day off work, so driving or riding when tired is sometimes an inevitability. Bringing this testing in would also lead to further large scale adjustments in working patterns for example employers might have to ensure that no one felt obliged to drive, ride or operate machinery on the way to, or at work, when they were too tired.

There are many concerns out there on the road, when surveyed, riders and drivers cited drink-driving, use of mobile phones not just to talk to someone, but to check social media, and tiredness while driving, as all being on the list of factors which could lead to accidents.

Thoughts?
How do you feel about this idea? Are you in favour as you will feel safer on the road, or does it seem too problematical to enforce on a daily basis? Have you ever ridden your bike or driven a car when you were tired and if so, was it a necessity? We’d be really interested in what you think on this one, as it is travelling along on its way to us soon…

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Slow down you move too fast, got to make the morning last

New equipment designed to spot riders and drivers who slow down for the speed cameras is on test in Spain

Nathan Harrison in action above – lucky there are no speed cameras around 😀

In the spring of last year new speed cameras began to be trialled in Spain, which can detect, not only a vehicle’s speed but also if a vehicle is braking sharply just before it passes the fixed speed camera, to give a false impression of its overall speed. This is an initiative designed to tackle the high mortality rates on Spanish roads, by slowing drivers down and preventing them from exceeding the speed limit between cameras, when they think no one is looking. Currently Spain uses a combination of fixed roadside cameras and mobile cameras attached to drones, to patrol the roads and spot speeders. Apart from the drones though, it is generally easy for riders to evade speed camera attention, by just slowing down when one is spotted in the distance and then speeding up again once they have passed the camera. Riders and drivers who regularly use the same roads, learn where the cameras are and slow down when they are approaching them.

The new devices being trialled consist of two cameras a short distance apart, which can see further down the road and cover a greater distance travelled, thus spotting behaviours like vehicles driving over the speed limit and just braking where the speed cameras are. They are basically behaving more like average speed cameras rather than fixed speed cameras. They are reputed to be able to detect if a vehicle gets back up to speed after passing the camera, as well as when they are approaching it.

It will be interesting to know the follow up to this trial and whether drivers and motorcyclists will actually be more likely to be caught speeding, or whether they will just learn the range and whereabouts of the new camera system, perhaps after a couple of tickets, and simply adjust their behaviour accordingly to avoid them.

Any thoughts on this one? Do you always stick religiously to the speed limit or are you guilty of slowing down for the cameras? Done any speed awareness courses lately?

Let us know your thoughts on this one.

It ‘Ain’t ‘Alf ‘Ot Mum

“PACK YOUR WATERPROOFS, WE’RE OFF TO WALES FOR SOME TRAIL RIDING.”

Good Times Had By All

For the first time EVER we didn’t need them. Got just as wet, if not wetter, but from the inside out as opposed to the outside in. Blimey it was mighty warm.

This trip consisted of three days following the TET (Trans European Trail). Starting in Llanidloes, mid-Wales, heading west towards the coast, then north and up into Snowdonia.

The Mount Inn, Llanidloes was where we stayed the night before the ride began. You know how all the descriptions of hotels etc brag about a warm welcome? Well at the Mount Inn we certainly got one and thoroughly recommend this hostelry to anyone stopping in the area.

The Road Less Travelled

Our last TET jaunt was in eastern France at the beginning of June. Whilst being a great little trip, the riding could not be described as particularly challenging. Well………this was to prove a contrast in a number of places.

Anything But Direct
Our first day’s target was Machynlleth, a whole 20 miles on the road from Llanidloes. Of course our predominantly off-road route was anything but direct. We started a little late after a false start and it took us a good number of hours to reach our destination. One reason is the number of gates we needed to open and close, a theme for all three days. Similar to, but probably not as extreme as the Northumberland section of the TET we did last year. In the blazing sun it soon became a chore getting on and off the bike and goodness, how grateful was I for an electric start? How did we do this stuff before the start button and GPS?
Anyhow the riding and the views more than made up for the minor hardships.
We pitched our tents just outside Machynlleth at the Gwerniago campsite which had good facilities and was friendly.

Still Waters Run Deep
The next morning our first trail was a mile or so from the campsite. It went in a steep, upward direction with plenty of those loose stones and rocks that are designed to offer a degree of challenge.
Now just because it was hot ‘n’ sunny don’t be thinking there wasn’t any water about, this was Wales after all and everywhere it was very green with streams and puddles all over the place. Most were no problem but there was one, as ever, that was a problem and I found it when my front wheel disappeared into a hole. A big hole. We were on the top of a moor at this point and we took a few moments to take off our sweaty hats and jackets, before thinking about how to extricate the water bound KTM. Then, to our amazement a couple of guys in running gear with numbers on their shirts appeared and as luck would have, it one of them had one of those long walking sticks people use these days. They stopped to chat and we borrowed the walking stick to check the depth of the puddle (lake). It was deep, so reversing out was in order.   

Every Picture Tells A Story

Turns out these guys were doing a 250 km race over five days. It was tempting to say they were crazy but they jogged on and we were left to struggle with my bike in the heat so who was the craziest?
I recall Milky noting that in the first two and a half hours we had managed a little under 10 miles. Not bad eh? Apart from that we progressed well for the rest of the day, all be it with a few more knarly climbs.

A Bridge Too Far?
The view down across the valley to Barmouth was stunning and when we got down the hillside there was a neat surprise, the route took us across a long wooden bridge next to the railway line that spans the impressive estuary and into the centre of Barmouth. Quite a bizarre experience as the other people entitled to use the bridge are pedestrians and cyclists.

A Bridge Too Far?

We headed back into the hills after lunch and our next dramatic view was across another bay towards Portmeirion which is an incredible village made famous by being used as the set in the late 60’s cult drama The Prisoner. “I’m not a number, I’m a free man”. We didn’t visit this time coz it costs money and we were too hot and sweaty to go walking around in riding gear, next time. Also, we were disappointed not to see any Rover bubbles chasing escapees. You have to be a certain age….

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the mountains of Snowdonia, don’t really need to say a great deal about this section, you can imagine how magnificent the riding is up there.
Our day ended in a campsite a few miles outside Betws-y-Coed. A quick word of warning, this is an expensive town, even the fuel was 10p a litre more than everywhere else we came across, but apart from that, it was lovely.

Tall Tale

Our third and final day was spent in the hills north and south of the A5 heading towards the town of Llangollen and the to Chirk and after that, the route turned back towards England. Here we decided to part ways. Milky rode off to visit his son and family up near Liverpool and I went to stay with some friends in nearby Oswestry. Both of us had hot ‘n’ sweaty rides back to the south east the next day.

Re-routing…
I reckon it might be better in future to do the route from north to south as that would mean a gentle start, with the trails getting more challenging as the ride progressed. The other thing to bear in mind is that we were on relatively big trail bikes, me on the LC4 and Milky on his 790, both with luggage for camping etc. On more than one occasion I thought that my little CRF 230 would have been the better choice but where would I put the camping stuff? And the 200 miles each way might prove a tad tedious too. Choices, choices. Either way we had a great ride through some stunning countryside. Roll on the next trip.
Have you been, or are you planning a trip to these trails or anywhere similar? We’d love to hear what you are up to…