The drive home is part of the shift. Sleep before you leave, or get a lift.
Six o'clock. Light returns to the peaks. The people who worked all night are driving home now. Outside, it's already morning. But for the body, the night isn't over yet. After a night shift, six drives out of sixteen came close to a crash. After a night's sleep, none. It was a test on a closed track. Seven times out of sixteen, the instructor had to stop the car. Driving home after a night shift, you have nothing to prove. Just get there safely.
Details 48 s · 9:16 · four languages · generated and declared images · 2026-09-08 · Drive Awake
Six o'clock. Light returns to the peaks. The people who worked all night are driving home now.
At 6, the body's alertness is barely above its 4 a.m. minimum. Whoever worked all night gets into the car at this hour to go home: it is the most dangerous drive of their day, yet nobody counts it as part of the shift.
Wright 2002 · DOI 10.1152/ajpregu.00205.2002
Watch this passage (0:00) →
Outside, it's already morning. But for the body, the night isn't over yet.
Two things add up: the hours spent awake, which raise sleep pressure, and the body clock, which at this hour is still in its night. Morning light resets the clock towards the day, but does not remove the hours awake. That is why sleepiness peaks exactly when it gets light (Wright 2002; Dawson and Reid 1997).
Watch this passage (0:07) →After a night shift, six drives out of sixteen came close to a crash. After a night's sleep, none.
Sixteen night workers drove for two hours on a closed track, in an ordinary car with an instructor on board: once after a night of sleep, once after a real night shift. After the shift, six drives out of sixteen had at least one near-crash; after sleep, none (Lee 2016).
Lee 2016 · DOI 10.1073/pnas.1510383112
Watch this passage (0:14) →
It was a test on a closed track. Seven times out of sixteen, the instructor had to stop the car.
In the same study, seven drives out of sixteen after the shift were stopped early by the instructor for safety, and lane departures doubled. Closed track, not open road: the figure says how exposed the body is, not how many crashes happen.
Watch this passage (0:20) →
Driving home after a night shift, you have nothing to prove. Just get there safely.
The drive home is not an endurance test. Whoever kept other people's night going has a right to a protected journey, and does not have to prove they can manage alone.
Watch this passage (0:27) →A short sleep before leaving, even twenty minutes, lowers the sleep pressure built up over the night (Brooks and Lack 2006). A lift or public transport removes the risk entirely: the journey stays, the wheel does not. Anyone working several nights in a row who wants to sleep by day can cut bright light on the way home with sunglasses, so the clock does not shift back to day (Crowley 2003).
2026-09-08 · Drive Awake
