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SALT LAKE CITY — State numbers show that drowsy driving kills dozens of people on Utah roads every year.
Rachel Howard Kunzler said she knows the true cost of "dozing off" behind the wheel.
"I'm getting ready for a triple funeral," said Kunzler, reading from her own writings from shortly after the accident. "Pure fear pulses through my heart, my lungs, and my mind."
Kunzler knows the grief of losing three family members at once. She still writes to cope with the cascade of emotions that have swept over her since the car crash that occurred on Highway 89 in Layton on June 28, 2007.
A driver in a pickup truck nodded off and crossed into the path of the vehicle carrying Kunzler, her mother and siblings. Kunzler's mom, Janine, and her 11-year-old brother, Matthew, died at the scene. Her 8-year-old sister, Esther, died later at the hospital. Kunzler and her younger brother, Caleb, survived. Their father wasn't in the car.
"It's important to take this terrible thing and keep using it for something good, and try to help other people with it," Rachel said.
As she and her husband prepare for their first child, Kunzler fears that too many people do not recognize when they are not alert enough to drive.
I'm getting ready for a triple funeral. Pure fear pulses through my heart, my lungs, and my mind.
–Rachel Howard Kunzler
UDOT representatives estimated that each year 32 people are killed on Utah roads as a result of drowsy driving, and the actual number is probably higher because fatigue is hard to identify in crash fatalities.
"It's really difficult to pinpoint drowsy driving unless you have an eyewitness report from the driver or someone else in the car," Utah Department of Transportation spokesman John Gleason said.
UDOT encourages people to plan ahead, especially if they're traveling long distances. Driving gets riskier when the driver gets less than six hours of sleep, so UDOT advises taking a break every two hours.
"If you start experiencing the heavy eyelids, the difficulty in focusing — get off the road," Gleason said. "It's not worth killing yourself or someone else."
