Decide when to drive

Be aware of peak travel hours. You can generally expect roads to be packed after 5 p.m. on the Friday before a holiday, and between 6 p.m. and midnight on the Monday or Tuesday after a holiday. To avoid jam-packed highways, consider taking personal days to travel. Although that may not be ideal, you may be saving yourself the headache of an accident. Since many people get up very early in the morning or travel late into the night to beat traffic, there is the real danger of drowsy driving. According to Sinclair, many who drive during times they are normally asleep can drift off into microsleep three to 10 second intervals of snoozing while at the wheel. Drivers [in a simulator study] thought they were just drowsy, but they had actually fallen asleep, says Sinclair. Falling asleep for three seconds may not sound like a big deal, but at 60 miles an hour, you are traveling 88 feet per second. So, at three seconds, you have traveled the distance of nearly a football field. A lot of bad things can happen in that distance.