Headlines and news stories could have turned out a lot differently if a tanker truck that crashed on I-5 had taken lives. Instead, the big news was told with spectacular pictures and stories of endless traffic delays and questions of road safety.
There’s another issue worth exploring in all of this — falling asleep at the wheel.
Witnesses have told authorities it looked like the 32-year-old truck driver was falling asleep. The Washington State Patrol is still investigating.
If drowsy driving turns out to be the cause of this crash, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Few of us would want to admit how many times we’ve felt the jolt of a rumble strip along the freeway and the subsequent adrenaline rush accompanied by a wave of guilt. About one in five Americans admit to dozing off while driving, reports the National Sleep Foundation. More than half of adult drivers admit feeling sleepy behind the wheel; hardly shocking when you consider how sleep deprived many Americans are and how much time we spend in traffic each day.
While there is a national campaign to raise awareness about the dangers — "Drive alert … Arrive alive" — it doesn’t appear to get the same attention as "Don’t drink and drive." After all, sleepy people don’t carry the same negative stereotype as drunken people. But they both can kill if they insist on driving. Some authorities believe many of the crashes that have been attributed to something else could be blamed in part or entirely on drowsy driving.
But that’s difficult to prove. Retired Sen. Jeanine Long of Mill Creek tried to push a bill through the Legislature that would have made it a gross misdemeanor to cause someone’s death by falling asleep while driving if events leading to the crash would cause a reasonable person to believe he or she was too tired to drive. The bill’s failure to go anywhere doesn’t detract from the issue’s importance. Whether we need harsher punishments for sleepy drivers who hurt others, we definitely need to raise awareness about the matter until people are as familiar with it as the anti-drinking and driving campaign and buckling their seat belts.
Saturday’s crash was a major inconvenience and it has already cost the state thousands of dollars, but we’re all fortunate things turned out as they did. This should serve as everyone’s wake-up call.
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