Longest you've driven without sleep breaks?

[Slacker]

20 hours, left DesMoine at 8 a.m. got home at 4 a.m., never been quite so fried in my entire life, driving through the mountains of southwestern P.A. at 2 a.m. with a bunch of suicidal truckers /twitch

 

[Meghan54]

Well, while I certainly don't advocate long drives, the return trip certainly was much easier than the drive up to MA. I did the GA/MA trip with no sleep for the day prior.....was going to send the wife by herself, but she wasn't in any shape to go by herself (she's made the trip more than a few times solo, taking two days to make it, but since the trip began less than 24 hours after learning her mother had died, her mental condition was less than optimal for driving, hence my having to drive.)

Coming back down, on the other hand, was much easier as I had decent sleep before leaving.

In both cases, we did the majority of the driving at night....and the worst time was around 18 hours into the drive. Thankfully, she stayed awake when I needed her to and talked...that kept me alert---that and our Lab puppy shoving her wet nose into my ear over and over and over in an attempt to con me into letting me sit in my lap.

eBauer.....that had to be a painful trip. I've done some 600 mile trips on a 750 and cannot fathom doing what we did on a bike. Painful.

Anyway, I was just curious to see if anyone else had done stupidly long trips without sleep stops.....and I see I'm not alone in that torture. At the age of 56 right now, it's not something I want to repeat any time soon....taking about two days to semi-recover to some semblance of normality. Still a bit tired and it's been two days since we got back home.

 

[eBauer]

eBauer.....that had to be a painful trip. I've done some 600 mile trips on a 750 and cannot fathom doing what we did on a bike. Painful.

To top if off, the next morning I drove 165 miles on the Honda down south to Blackhawk Farms in South Beloit, IL, rented a set of leathers, and had enough time to do 3 sessions in the A group with Sportbike Track Time. Needless to say the drive back home that night was painful, and I took about a week break from the bike.

 

[speedy2]

18ish hours. 1259miles. 2nd leg of a San Diego to Florida trip I did. Actually did this trip twice round trip and once more 1 way to Florida.

Only stop to pee/fuel/eat all in the same stops.

 

[Dirigible]

Longest driving a motorized vehicle isn't very long. Only about ten or eleven hours.

I've mountain biked for 24 hours straight though. In addition to the weird mental stuff that goes on at 3am after pedaling for 17 hours, there's extreme tiredness from the exercise (oddly, my legs aren't the problem, it's my arms on steep bumpy downhills), ass-pain, and all kinds of trouble eating and drinking.

 

[Zap]

I've mountain biked for 24 hours straight though.

That's pretty hardcore. Longest I've biked was probably around 5 hours (actually off road and in the mountains too!). That was back when I did such things. Nowadays I probably wouldn't be able to make an hour on asphalt unless it were downhill.

 

[joutlaw]

That's similar to my longest solo. I did Denver, CO to Jackson, MS.

I've done the Jackson, MS to Denver, CO too, but stopped in Salina, KS the last couple of times I did it.

The Vail, CO to Jackson, MS was worse than on the way there. I had blowout in BFE Kansas. No offense to any Kansas members, but that has to be the most boring state I've ever driven through.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Ames, IA to Dallas, TX - ~750 miles in about 8.5 hours. Helps having a Valentine One to watch out for jlee

 

[JulesMaximus]

Driving while sleep deprived is a really stupid idea. Longest I've driven was about 700 miles in one day and it took the entire day. We left early AM and arrived at our destination after dark. Trip was Albany, NY to Grand Rapids, MI and we drove through Canada.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ehh longest road trips I've have been from NW burbs of Chicago to New Orleans which is about 1000 miles. I went down with a friend, but I drove the whole way as I get bored sitting in the passenger seat and my friend was a crappy driver.

Have driven to Sioux falls several times, had an uncle who lived out there for about 12 or 13 years... But that's only about 600 miles....

Anyhow, I don't really drive while sleep deprived. 1000 miles in one day may have been a bit much, but I was able to maintain over 80mph throughout Mississippi, most of IL once we got south past the chicago area, and most of Missouri (slowwer in some bits or where there was more traffic...)
Took about 13 or so hours if I recall to go 1 way.

 

[Zap]

I was able to maintain over 80mph throughout Mississippi, most of IL once we got south past the chicago area

Be careful with IL because there's widespread use of laser guns nowadays. I've done Jackson, MS up to Wisconsin in late 2008, and a few miles into IL there was a state trooper with laser on the side of the road. Further down the road was several (maybe 4-5?) state troopers pulling people over that were clocked by the first guy.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Be careful with IL because there's widespread use of laser guns nowadays. I've done Jackson, MS up to Wisconsin in late 2008, and a few miles into IL there was a state trooper with laser on the side of the road. Further down the road was several (maybe 4-5?) state troopers pulling people over that were clocked by the first guy.

They do that in New York all the time.

 

[shortylickens]

8 hours.

Anything more is stupid.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I've driven from Dallas, TX to Nashville, TN with a car hauler trailer. Picked up my Trans Am and drove home all in one shift. So about 1350 miles. Took about 24 hours of non stop driving. The drive home was the worst. About when we got back into Ark, it was like every oncomming headlight was a laser shining in my eyes.

Done the same thing going from Dallas, To South Houston, to Harlingen, TX back to Dallas. That was another 24 hour trip that I rode along for(BTW I can't sleep in a moving vehicle) only to find that the car we went for down there was completely mis represented and the seller sent pics of it from years ago.
If I wasn't so tired from driving from Dallas, to Houston to Harlingen, I would have beat the shit out of the guy.

 

[CraigRT]

18 hours.
Halifax, Nova Scotia to Burlington, Ontario (where I dropped off my rental)

Then after stopping at Ikea I drove (in a car, although not driving) the other almost 2 hours home to London, Ontario.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Be careful with IL because there's widespread use of laser guns nowadays. I've done Jackson, MS up to Wisconsin in late 2008, and a few miles into IL there was a state trooper with laser on the side of the road. Further down the road was several (maybe 4-5?) state troopers pulling people over that were clocked by the first guy.

Yea, this was like 2002 or 2003 back when I was 22 or 23.... I used to drive a lot faster than I do now ...

Nowadays I just go with the flow of traffic... usually that means about 7-10mph over the limit....

 

[KIAman]

I was up for 28 hours then drove from Portland, OR to Sacramento, CA for another 9 hours, so I was up about 37 hours. I remember hallucinating the last hour of the drive. I kept imagining deer running across the road and I was swerving to avoid them. Other drivers honking snapped me out of it temporarily.

I remember coming home and dropping into bed, completely exhausted and drained but couldn't fall asleep for the next 4 hours. Waking up the middle of the next day, I couldn't remember anything for the last 30 minutes of the drive. I still don't remember how took the exit, how I pulled into the garage and what I did before I dropped into bed. I do remember being in bed for 4 hours before not checking the clock again. My theory is that I was in a sleep/hypnotized state and was operating purely on reflex and none of it commited to my long term memory.

I'll never do that again.

 

[Eli]

Be careful with IL because there's widespread use of laser guns nowadays. I've done Jackson, MS up to Wisconsin in late 2008, and a few miles into IL there was a state trooper with laser on the side of the road. Further down the road was several (maybe 4-5?) state troopers pulling people over that were clocked by the first guy.

lol

I guess that's one good thing about driving for fuel economy.. You don't have to worry about speeding tickets on the highways.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Be careful with IL because there's widespread use of laser guns nowadays. I've done Jackson, MS up to Wisconsin in late 2008, and a few miles into IL there was a state trooper with laser on the side of the road. Further down the road was several (maybe 4-5?) state troopers pulling people over that were clocked by the first guy.

STi Driver + Blinder M47 = problem solved.
Not that I have that much money to dump into it. Have to hope that I get lucky as far as LIDAR goes (Valentine One).

 

[Rifter]

29 hours, yes it was stupid, no i wouldnt do it again, and yes there were drugs involved to stay awake.

 

[mattbrown860]

I drove 46 hours straight from NYC to LA. No stops for sleep.

 

[mattbrown860]

I drove 46 hours straight from NYC to LA. No stops for sleep.

Oh, and it was on an all-nighter. Couldn't get to sleep on my friends couch. I was up for 72 hours straight. No chemicals involved except caffeine and testosterone (I was angry...)

 

[ultimatebob]

12-14 hours. That's at the extreme limit of what I felt comfortable doing. Haven't done that in years though.

I once drove about 16 hours straight on a return trip from California to Pennsylvania. If I remember right, I drove from Cheyenne, Wyoming all the way to Toledo, Ohio in one day on Interstate 80. That's an insane amount of driving for one day, but I needed to make up time because my car (an old Ford Escort) broke down in Utah the day before.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

My personal longest was Hilton Head Island SC to Ithaca NY. Normally make it in two days, felt like driving through. Not 100% how long it took, but it's 900 miles and I probably averaged 80 the whole way so I'm assuming with traffic and food/gas/pee breaks, around 12h. Not fun, and wouldn't be comfortable doing more than that unless I was driving the Camaro and could just do 120 the whole way.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I know I told this story in another thread.

I chose to drive home from Northern Virginia to Riverside, CA in 1991. I had a car with only 30,000 miles on the engine that I wanted to give to my youngest brother. So I left the town of Occoquan at 10:30AM, driving continuously until -- I think -- around 5 or 6 PM the next day, when I stopped in Oklahoma City and put up at a motel. I slept for 8 hours and started again before the sun came up. I made Kingman in the late afternoon sun, and continued, driving all the way to Essex, CA where I took a side-road, so I could come up on Riverside from the southeast. I think I rolled into my family's neighborhood at around 10:30AM.

That's the story. You can do the arithmetic and tell me what my longest non-stop ever was -- it was the first or latter part of that trip. My ass was cramped so badly, the pain didn't go away for two days. I'll never do that again.

"Well, I'm warped by the rain,
"Driven by the snow,
"I'm drunk and dirty -- don't you know --
"But I'm willin' . . . . to keep on movin' . . .

"And I been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonapah . .
"Driven every kinda rig that's ever been made . . .
"Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed.
"And if you give me . . . weed, whites and wine

Etc. etc.