Spring Break
Going Greyhound and living to tell the story
Minal Gandhi / Daily Opinion Editor
- Page 1 of 1
|
At about 1:30 a.m., on the way to San Diego, where this year’s California Intercollegiate Press Association was held, the Greyhound bus which I and several other Daily staff members were riding began to swerve.
I didn’t believe it at first.
As I sat uncomfortably in my seat, struggling to fall asleep yet knowing I never would, I reasoned that hopping on a bus after a long day of classes and a night of editing was drowning me in delirium.
I was wrong, though, because soon thereafter I wasn’t the only passenger who noticed the awkward motion.
One by one, others stood up to look over in the direction of our headphoned driver, Steve, hoping that seeing him sitting straight in his seat with his hands confidently placed at 10 and 2 o’clock on the steering wheel, would be enough to ease our apprehensions.
Steve, however, wasn’t cooperating.
And seeing that the motion of his swaying silhouette matched that of the bus, I wasn’t doing so well. My nerves were unraveling — fast.
Thankfully, the Daily’s sports editor got so annoyed, not to mention worried, by sleepy Steve’s shenanigans that he decided to stroll up to the front of the bus and offer to buy him a cup of coffee.
According to the Daily editor, Steve nervously wiped the perspiration from his brow and declined the offer.
I guess it was pride. Or maybe it was embarrassment about the possibility of being caught sleeping on the job, but I know that after Steve was approached, he had no intention of thinking about sleep for a long time — at least on the bus.
Plus, our worries were abated 15 minutes later when the bus pulled into a rest stop and Steve decided to get some coffee after all.
According to the National Sleep Foundation’s 2000 Sleep in America poll, half of the nation’s adults (51 percent) admitted to driving while drowsy.
In addition to that, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that there are approximately 100,000 police-reported crashes annually, and at least 71,000 people are injured in fall-asleep crashes each year.
For commercial drivers, such as truckers and bus drivers who have a high prevalence of a sleep and breathing disorder called sleep apnea, the risk of falling asleep at the wheel is much greater due to the late hours of their shifts and the duration of trips.
Frightening findings, especially when we see that regardless of the dangers, so many tired Americans continue to put their lives, and those of others, at risk.
We, however, weren’t about to take any more chances.
On the way back to San Jose, our staff decided it would be wiser to screw the money we paid for our tickets and skip the bus ride.
Instead, we hitched rides with those who drove in the first place and rented a car for the rest of the staff. At least that way, we figured that we could look out for one another.
Ironically, I saw our bus on the way back.
“Hey Minal. Go Greyhound?” a friend quipped.
“Hell no,” I said. “Never again.”
Minal Gandhi is the Spartan
Daily Opinion Editor.
“Unravel” appears Mondays.
Be the first to comment on this story