Staying awake at the wheel
Whether during the day or at night, it’s very easy to become dozy after a few hours of
monotonous constant speed driving on the modern interstate. It’s a killer and over the
years has accounted for many deaths on the highway.
Turning down the heat, opening the fresh air vents or lowering a car window can help
(but hurts your gas mileage), and so can turning on a talk show with an annoying,
opinionated host (believe me, they are out there).
How do soldiers in critical military situations stay awake for long hours? We checked
and found they use a product called, Stay Alert chewing gum. It is marketed to the public
and available through amazon.com as Military Energy Gum.
Developed at Walter Reed especially for the US Army, each stick contains 100mg
(milligrams) of caffeine; enough to keep a 150lb soldier alert for several hours. A stick
can be chewed every 2 hours, to a maximum of 10 a day. The gum has an advantage over
pills since the mouth absorbs medication 4 times faster than the stomach.
Here's a chart of other popular caffeine products which also help:
Serving
Coffee, brewed,
Coca Cola, Classic,
Mountain Dew Code Red,
Red Bull,
Starbucks, coffee, short,
Tea, Indian, brewed,
Caffeine
8.0oz 108mg
12.0
34
12.0
55
8.3
80
8.0
250
8.0
60
Caffeine/oz
13.50mg/oz
2.83
4.58
9.64
31.25
7.50
(From a study by the US Food and Drugs Administration)
(words: 231).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Credit: by Dave Hunter, author of Along I-75 and Along Florida’s Expressways.
Additional, if needed:
Dave is a founding member of the Travel Media Association of Canada and a long time
member of the Society of American Travel Writers. His travel guide books have won
prestigious awards in both Canada and the USA.
Most notably, VISITFLORIDA, the Sunshine State’s official tourism organization
recently endorsed Dave’s “Along Florida’s Expressways” as the guide book it uses in all
its state Welcome Centers.
Dave and his wife Kathy, have been driving I-75 to Florida since it was built in the
1960s.