Sometimes it can be worth it to check to decide if it's worth trying to get back to sleep or if you may as well just go ahead and start your day a little early.

Waking up to an alarm can be unpleasant, but it's often necessary to guarantee being up when you need to, so I figure why bother trying to get back to sleep with like 15 to 30 minutes left unless I'm tired enough for the stress of only 15 to 30 minutes left to not keep me awake.

I'd think self medicating is a bit more risky just because it's much less regulated and the user may not have a good understanding of the potential risks. Sometimes a drug someone's self-medicating with can feel good -- otherwise people wouldn't use them recreationally after all -- even if it's not really helping to properly manage the condition.

Many psychiatric prescription drugs don't come with restrictions on driving beyond the standard "hey wait until you know how this affects you" so you don't sue them if you have side effects that cause an accident. Which makes sense, because they're often prescribed to help improve functioning rather than impair it. The exact specifics of course would depend on which one and what it's supposed to treat, but the reason that, for example, alcohol + driving is a no-no is because it impairs cognitive functioning, which isn't going to be the case for e.g. many antidepressants.

I say this not to defend the driver because there's no excuse for that level of speed (I've seen disagreement as to if it's 120 or 151 mph but both are definitely well into reckless driving territory outside of a racetrack), but because many people take psychiatric medications and are totally safe to drive.

They're technically drugs but often when people are talking about drugs they mean recreational drugs and/or prescription drug abuse rather than taking medication as directed.