Sleep Deprivation Causes Car Accident

Running on two hours of sleep, upper Jordan Cynewski got into his green Toyota Prius at 7:15 a.m. last Saturday to set out on his daily half-hour commute to school. Twenty minutes later, after falling asleep at the wheel, he crashed and totaled his car.“[I was] going about 40 [miles per hour] down North Rd. in East Kingston, and when I woke up, there was an airbag in my face.” Cynewski, an upper, had fallen asleep at the wheel, drifted into the left lane, and hit a telephone pole. The pole then snapped and wrecked a parked car. He was not injured.Cynewski had stayed up until 4 a.m. that morning, studying for a Russian quiz and working on an English paper. Though this was not a typical situation for Cynewski, fatigue while driving is not unusual for many day students. When asked about driving while drowsy, most said it was simply part of being an Exonian.According to the National Sleep Foundation, a driver that has slept for five hours or less is four to five times more likely to get in an accident than a driver that has slept eight hours. A study conducted by the school approximately three years ago found that day students, on average, sleep slightly more than boarders, though neither group is getting the official recommended amount of sleep for their age group.Health instructor Michelle Soucy wondered whether these statistics had changed over the recent years. “The towns where you can be a day student have expanded, so we might see a change for students that have even longer commutes,” she said. “Potentially, day students could have a larger commute and be losing more sleep.”Nonetheless, while tired boarders get to breakfast and class by foot, day students are put at risk as soon as they operate their vehicle on their way to school when they have been deprived of sleep. Upper Zach Hamdi, along with many other day students, saw driving as a responsibility that comes with both benefits and drawbacks. “It’s funny because part of the advantage to being a day student is having a car, but the commute is definitely a disadvantage,” he said.Friend of Cynewski and fellow upper Sarah Lamie agreed with Hamdi. Her commute takes an hour out of each day. “That loss of time could be spent for boarders getting sleep or doing homework. For us, that’s gone. It has an impact on every student that drives, whether it’s through grades, sleep or another aspect,” she said.Other day students get to school via carpool. While carpools are more cost-effective and convenient for some, students cannot use early morning auxiliary periods, designed by the administration to ease Exonians’ sleep schedules, because all passengers must arrive on campus in time for one student’s 8 a.m. class. “You’re always waiting on someone else, and you lack that element of freedom that you have with your own car,” Lamie said.Cynewski also commented on the pros and cons of carpooling. “I was in a carpool until I got my license,” he said, “But that, too, can lead to sleep deprivation, because nobody gets to use their sleep-ins.”Other students are driven to school by parents, family members or older siblings. Students and faculty alike noted the benefits to this advantageous situation. “Some day students have parents that drive them, and they can just get in the car and go to sleep,” Soucy said.For the uppers and seniors that drive themselves to school, many have identified strategies to make sure they stay alert on their route. “I blast the radio and sing along to every song to keep myself awake. If I don’t, it’s hard to stay alert,” Lamie said.Commute time is a long-standing complaint among day students. Senior Alec Greaney acknowledges that it can seem unfair at times, but that day students simply must grow used to the loss of time. “After [driving to school] for four years, you just make the best of it. Sure, I would prefer to have nine hours of sleep when I'm driving,” he said.Although he wasn’t injured by accident, Cynewski felt the incident taught him a valuable lesson. “When I came into school on Monday a lot of my friends were upset with me for driving tired,” he said. “They came at with all these stats about how sleeping tired is worse than drunk driving.”When asked how often he drives when tired after the incident, he replied: “Now, never.”