I can understand that you dont have to make physical effort to feel tired, because I work as a computer programmer and I feel tired after making mental effort, but this effort seems way bigger than the one required to drive, yet, after 4,5 hours of driving I feel way more exhausted than after 8,10 hours of coding.
In: Biology
So there are a few factors affecting your tiredness.
1. Actively driving. This is the effort it takes to drive, navigate, check your speed, and basically manage yourself on the road.
2. Sub-conscious driving. When driving, you’re doing 100s of small adjustments every minute. Checking the speed of other cars and managing your car against them. Slowing down a tiny bit to keep the car under the speed limit, maintaining spacial awareness by checking the mirrors and other traffic.
3. Physical fatigue. So part of this is the physical effort used to move your arms on the wheel and pedals. But also the effort your body goes through to keep you seated comfortably. Your body is working constantly to hold you in your seat, check your leg is comfortable etc.
4. Finally, and this is for passengers as well as drivers. Its “NVH” or noise, vibration and harshness. Its things like tire noise, how much lurching you do in motion vs smooth driving, and how isolated you feel from the rest of the world.
All of these combine to make driving pretty tiring. Good luck!
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