Video from group n°101

Welcome to the webpage of group 101

The topic we have decided to explore is the following :
Drowsy driving which is one of principale cause of death on roads. We introduce to you causes, symptoms, ways to prevention and some solutions. Hope you'll enjoy the video and be aware of drowsy driving's dangers.

Our paper

For our sustainable performance project, we decided to focus on a social scourge, tiredness while driving. Indeed, in France, one out of three mortal car accidents is caused by drivers’ tiredness, generally linked to the speed of the car. Last year, according to Le Monde, about 3,384 drivers were killed on the road and 35,000 others were seriously injured. Tiredness on steering wheel is the third most deadly cause. People seem to drive faster and faster in order to reach their finale place. They think that if you’re driving faster, you are more likely to rest quickly. Unfortunately, the faster you drive, the greater the risk of accident is. But here’s the main problem: people still do not realize how many risks they are taking while driving in these conditions, and usually keep not listening advices.

Of course, not everyone needs the same amount of sleep. But there’s no doubt that the evolution of our society, nowadays’ work organization, and the appearance and the development of new technologies/ systems such as smartphones, computer or even TV, have impacted billion of people’s life and lead to a serious lack of sleep. It is undeniable that we do not sleep well, leading, in general, to drowsy driving, which is more and more present today.

That’s the reason why we wanted to focus on this social issue at the first place. Making people a little bit more aware about their responsibility on the road, not only for themselves but also for others is our main purpose. That’s why we realized a video staging different testimonies from many people, especially students; in order to make some prevention and change people’s mind.

On one hand, in this video, most of interviewed people are mainly aware of the danger but many don’t seem to take a lot of precaution. Actually, when we asked them what the biggest mistakes of drivers are, they tend to first respond speed and alcohol. So, it’s seems logical and essential for us to meet some experts, to explain why more and more of drivers are still driving whereas they are tired, despite their awareness. We met a driving school’s instructor, who give us some advices and explanations of the phenomenon in order to reduce effectively the numbers of deaths on the roads. Besides, an anonymous taxi driver gave us his time to mention some of his life’s anecdotes and experiences on the road. For instance, he explained us the symptoms of the beginning of tiredness: irritated eyes, posture not as straight, hands on the steering wheel, backaches etc. Moreover, he gave us some solutions to reduce all of these such as not hesitating to take many breaks, so rests every hour, especially for long trips, doing exercises or stretching.

On the other hand, we really wanted to make people stop getting ideas about thoughts that are obviously not true. Indeed, we demonstrated that coffee gives, as energetic drinks, only a little boost but only for a short term. It doesn’t have an impact on long term, as many of drivers may think. Same for loud music, which might wakes the drivers up just for a few seconds, but doesn’t keep your awake for all the road and unfortunately, doesn’t make you avoid any accident.

To conclude, this phenomenon does not get as much awareness as it should get. Actually, there are not enough prevention campaigns made by the public authorities. It’s important to specify that we really want to make a change through our project, at least on the way how people are going to think now, and make them (still) aware of the extreme danger of the drowsy driving.

==============