Banned From Driving

So that’s that then, on the day I came out of hospital for the lastest round of tests, I came home to read that the DVLA are revoking my driving license. I had such a rough couple of days in hospital just before this weekend, not being able to sleep well out of sheer discomfort and to come home to this news and only having the weekend remaining to drive my car, it came as quite a blow. I should have been banned in April and due to admin hold ups I was allowed to carry on after April until now, it’s important to understand that I haven’t done anything wrong :(

I wrote about the hospital stay at 2Underland

I love my car, it’s the one I wanted but couldn’t afford when I passed my test, so I saved up hard to afford it. I suppose in a way it’s a loss and in the same way a funernal marks the loss of someone loved, I could recall all the times I’ve had in my tiny dinky car, including fitting a double bed in it, trips to the beach, picking up my new born neice from hospital and giving some of Imogen Heap’s band members a lift to a festival, amongst other road trips to places like Bristol.

I’m really glad I took those road trips, to Leamington, Sheffield, Bristol and Bath and of course Weston-Super-Mare twice because the threat of not being able to drive was always very real. I made the most of what I had while I had it and now have to let go.

To get my licence back I will have to demonstrate I can control my sleep attacks, which I can’t, I haven’t got a diganosis yet and no treatment schedule. After I do that I will have to apply for a 1 year license and take a driving test, then a 3 year takes me to 4 years and another 3 years after that, making 7 years on a special medical certificate, then I can get my full driving license back, somewhere around 2018 and way after peak oil! This is not a trivial issue, none of what I’m going through at the moment is trivial or easy or something everyone else has to deal with because they don’t. Not like this.

Loosing my entitlement to drive has always been an expectation, even though I don’t yet have a diagnosis, simple fact is it’s not safe to drive under the influence of excessive sleepiness. I’ve been really lucky to have been able to carry on driving for so long after informing the DVLA of the change to my health which involves drowsy driving.

I’m a safe driver and en route to 10 years no claims, I am aware of my tiredness and take steps to deal with it. In essence I completly agree that cessation is the right thing to do, albeit a very bitter pill to swollow, I will save so much money by not driving.

So much pressure to carry on driving
Even though nobody else shared my realisim on this and at one point I was accused of making the choice to stop driving (and I was encouraged to drive drowsy), everyone kept saying, it’ll be fine, they won’t stop you driving. Really? You have to fill in something called an Epworth Sleep Scale, of which when I began my journey towards a diagnosis over 12 months ago, I scored 12, indicating moderate drowsiness.

A recent BBC documentary, “Taking the Keys Away” featured an elderly lady diganosed with Sleep Apenoa. The empath in me had a little moment (12mins into clip).

 

Epworth says urgh, urgh
The simple test scores points based on how likely you are to fall asleep in certain situations, one of which is “whilst stopped in traffic”. I’d be lying if I said my supposed Narcolepsy doesn’t have an effect, if there is traffic for example and I’m out longer than expected a sleep attack can creep up on me and I’d have to pull over and sleep. When it came to the DVLA asking me to do Epworth I scored 19 and 7 is enough to ban you from driving.

Highway Hypnosis – Trance Driving
One thing that lead to me realising I had a problem was motorway driving at night. I LOVE motorway driving, I took Pass Plus and am at home on the Motorway. I find it so much more entertaining than street driving, pop on some Motown when the traffic clears and cruise in the middle at 70mph. It is however more risky due to the speed involved, at night I openly admit to on occasion being intoxicated by sleep.

I also made it clear to certain people that I was having microsleeps on the way into work, at work and on the way home from work, yet nobody took it seriously and I felt as if my concerns were being downplayed because everyone drives when they are tired.

Driving drowsy, is serious, it’s not like drunk driving where you feel confident, it’s more like you feel distant almost like the driving expereince is a passive one that you’re watching, in my expereince and that’s an eye opener I think. I suppose understandable that if you are on the edge of sleep, you’re on the way to dreaming and starting to slip away. The sooner more people wake up to it being as serious if not more serious than drink driving, I think we’ll have safer roads. You shouldn’t drive if you feel tired and I feel tired virtually all the time. It certainly affects my blurry vision more at night which for photographers out there, will feel more understanding if I say it’s like all the cats eyes are in Bokeh.

“How often have you gotten in your car and later find yourself at your destination and don’t remember arriving? Well some call that highway hypnosis and some call it self-induced hypnosis.” — eHow.com

Gap driving began to ring alarm bells with me. I would sometimes arrive to work and not remember how I got there and if you’re thinking, well I do that all the time, you’re an accident waiting to happen really, let’s be honest. Narcolepsy, or should I say Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (you can expereince this after being kept awake all night), means you wonder around in a trance like state, which is great if you want some freaky dreams, but not so when driving.

So it’s not a choice to stop driving, it’s not a choice you’d make lightly and I would much rather to have to not face this choice, to ignore it and wait for the car crash. IF I have choosen to chop my wings off like this (as a temporary measure I hope) for the fun of it (I don’t see why you would), then it’s a responsible choice from a responsible person, it’s not worth the risk, however it does get you down knowing that in some way at the moment this seemingly trivial issue of sleep is playing with me like this, testing me even more. And yet nobody really believes I have an illness because it can’t be seen.

The original Autopilot.