NEW YORK CITY – Impaired driving is most often associated with cell phone or drug/alcohol use, but a recent study has found that drowsy driving is just as dangerous and far more common.
That’s the conclusion of recent research by MarketWatch Guides, just in time for the national observance of Drowsy Driving Prevention Week on Nov. 5 to 11.
Experts at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Foundation for Traffic Safety of the American Automobile Association and the National Sleep Foundation all agree with that conclusion.
NSF research shows that 95 percent of American drivers think that drowsy driving is risky, but the majority of them do it anyway.
That same analysis reveals that a projected 150 million U.S. motorists – about 62 percent – admit that they have driver a car or truck when they were so tired that they had a hard time keeping their eyes open.
“Drowsy driving is impaired driving,” said John Lopos, the chief executive officer of the National Sleep Foundation. “It’s a risk to public health and safety that can impact anyone on our roads.”
Drowsy driving is responsible for more than 6,400 deaths annually in traffic mishaps, according to estimates by the AAA.
To illustrate those dangers, MarketWatch points to data from the Centers for Disease Control of America that suggests that 1 in 25 drivers have admitted to falling asleep at the wheel in the past 30 days. Many more also admit to driving while sleep-deprived.
Experts acknowledge that it is difficult to know exactly how many traffic mishaps are caused by drowsy driving.
While drowsy, drivers’ reaction times, awareness of hazards and ability to sustain attention all worsen.
The NSF believe that driving after going more than 20 hours without sleep is the equivalent of driving with a blood–alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent. That the U.S. legal limit and nearly twice the legal limit in Utah of 0.05 percent.
Safety officials add that drowsy-driving often results in short, involuntary periods of inattention that they call micro-sleep. During those periods, a car proceeding at highway speed can travel the length of a football field into oncoming traffic or off the roadway.
While the NHTSA says that about 100,000 drowsy-driving crashes involving 50,000 injuries and 800 deaths are reported each year, the AAA Foundation estimates that more than three times that number go unreported.
Here in Utah, the Department of Public Safety says that most drowsy driving mishaps occur between midnight and 6 a.m. and also in the late afternoon. At both of those times, people frequently experience dip in their circadian rhythm – the body’s internal clock that regulates sleep patterns.
The Utah Department of Transportation suggests that the groups most vulnerable to drowsy driving mishaps are young male drivers under the age of 26; shift workers; commercial drivers, business travelers; and people with undiagnosed or untreated sleep disorders.
Experts at the NSF add adolescents and teenagers to that list, especially college students. Undergrads traditionally spend less time sleeping, many as little as six hours a night.
Getting adequate sleep on a daily basis is the only true way to protect yourself against the risks of driving when you’re drowsy, according to Kristin Forbis, a UDPS spokeswoman.
Experts urge consumers to make it a priority to get seven to eight hours of sleep per night.
Drivers should also check prescriptions and over-the-counter medication labels to see if drowsiness could result from their use. If they take medications that could cause drowsiness as a side effect, those individuals should use public transportation whenever possible.
For more information about the MarketWatch study, go online to https://www.marketwatch.com/guides/insurance-services/drowsy-driving-statistics/
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