Driving alone at night: Tricks to help you stay alert at the wheel

Your mind starts playing games with your eyes when you are driving through deserted stretches at night.

BHPian SR-71 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

One of the challenges on long drives is to keep yourself engaged when the going gets tough. In my case, I love driving and the better half hates it. So it's always me on the wheel, while she peacefully snores away to kingdom come. Music is not my thing. I rather prefer a silent cabin and maybe some soft music at low volume. When the traffic is super thin and you are driving through deserted stretches, how do you keep yourself engaged? In my experience, the mind starts playing tricks with your eyes in such stretches.

Of course, the default answer is to avoid night driving. But there are scenarios when it cannot be avoided. So avoiding night driving or taking a break every 10 minutes (which is impractical) is not an option for this discussion. So I am interested in knowing what one does to keep one engaged under such circumstances Here are a few things I do:

• Tail a well-driven car at a safe distance.
• Safe mock racing with a well-driven car. There have been instances where I set the cruise control in such a way that I end up overtaking the car with the delta speed being quite small. And a few minutes later the other one does it. No ego, no rash driving, just fun swapping the tail and head.
• Eagerly watch out for the next toll (perhaps the only time I am waiting for the toll booth to pop up on the horizon).
• Sometimes, I solve my code problems mentally (and I have actually had some major success stories too out of that).

I would be interested in learning other tricks that fellow members engage in under such circumstances.

Here's what BHPian am1m had to say about the matter:

Might sound funny, but this is the main reason I don't drink tea or coffee normally. So that on the (very) rare occasions I'm forced to extend a highway ride or a drive to post-sunset, say to reach a hotel or the next big town, a single shot of coffee works amazingly on my senses.

But overall, I don't think our highways are suited for night driving or riding, so I don't. Prefer to break the journey much before sunset or just take the day off to split the journey better. Curious to understand the scenarios where night driving is unavoidable. Apart from some emergencies, which will be a one-off, can't think of any that would be worth the risk of driving/riding on our highways at night. But of course, to each their own.

Here's what BHPian Latheesh had to say about the matter:

Espresso (coffee day), water, apple, and snickers (sometimes). Favorite music playing throughout. I used to do frequent Bangalore-Kannur earlier and this is how I managed. I stopped doing night drives after 2017.

Here's what BHPian ninjatalli had to say about the matter:

I love doing overnight rides. Here's a rough idea of what worked for me.

• Curated music and/or podcasts. Put efforts into figuring this out so that keeps your interests up.
• Figure out if you have a family/friend who's up late that night. Can do calls with him/her. Bonus points if this is someone overseas then timeliness match. If this is a safety concern, you can always stop over and talk.
• Take short breaks. For me, it's coffee breaks (eg. CCD or other coffee joints that are open).
• Be open to short naps when the need arises. I generally park my car in front of a well-lit dhaba/restaurant that is open and take short-timed (alarms) naps. Even a short sleep does wonder.
• Most important, plan ahead and get rest prior to driving. Not safe to do a ride after a long day at work.

Here's what BHPian Turbohead had to say about the matter:

Since you've mentioned that you don't like music while driving, I'd suggest you ditch the cruise control and get completely involved in the driving. Ignore fuel efficiency and try driving in a sporty manner- shift later (switch to manual mode if you have an automatic), accelerate harder and try to keep yourself as engaged as possible to flood your internal systems with adrenaline which will help you to stay awake longer.

Here's what BHPian Kosfactor had to say about the matter:

If One needs 'another' activity to keep oneself engaged while driving at night - I guess it's time to find a hotel to sleep over.

Driving is the activity that should keep one wide awake.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.