Falling asleep at the wheel
By: Jack Nerad for Driving Today
Date: 2004-05-03
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Are you getting enough sleep? Apparently a lot of people aren't, and the result is dangerous. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that approximately 100,000 police-reported crashes annually involve drowsiness and/or fatigue as a principal causal factor. Those crashes result in an estimated 1,500 fatalities and 71,000 injuries each year, and an annual monetary loss of approximately $12.5 billion.
It is amazing the carnage isn't worse, considering a recent survey by Farmers Insurance. More than 10 percent of drivers admit to having fallen asleep at the wheel, while more than 20 percent say they have momentarily dozed while driving, according to the study of 1,024 drivers.
Referred to as "the silent killer" because it is so often overlooked as the cause of an accident, drowsy driving's full effect is not yet known because reporting is imprecise, police are not trained to detect sleep-related crashes and there is no Breathalyzer-like test to determine whether someone was driving while dangerously drowsy.
"Driving while drowsy or fatigued is something that most drivers have experienced or will experience at some point," said Greg Ciezadlo, vice president, Farmers Insurance, yawning. "We need to raise the awareness of this problem and educate drivers on how to prevent it from happening."
According to the Farmers survey, almost three times as many men (15.9 percent) as women (5.8 percent) said they had fallen asleep while driving. Those ages 55 to 64 had the highest percentage of any age group surveyed (13.7 percent).
Nearly twice as many (20.6 percent) of those surveyed said they had momentarily dozed while driving, including 28.6 percent of the male respondents. In addition, while 53.4 percent of all surveyed said they have felt drowsy while driving, 41.2 percent claimed they kept driving. (Hey, "good" idea.)
Tactics to fight drowsiness
Now a new survey shows some of the tactics drivers resort to in an effort to fight drowsiness on the road. In descending order, the most popular tactics those surveyed said they have used when they have become sleepy while they were driving were:
- Stop driving or switching drivers (59.5 percent)
- Open the windows or turn on the air conditioning (59.0 percent)
- Listen to the radio or CDs (57.7 percent)
- Stop to eat or drink (46.3 percent)
- Drink caffeine (42.3 percent)
Other methods the respondents claimed to have used to stay awake at the wheel include talking or singing to themselves (31.7 percent), splashing water in their faces (18.4 percent) and slapping, hitting, or pinching themselves (a self-abusive 16.1 percent).
The American Institute of Chartered Personal Casualty Underwriters (which is one heckuva name for a band) insists "stay awake" behaviors such as exercising, turning on the radio, and opening the windows are misconceptions and have not been proven to prevent sleep attacks. Other unproven methods to combat drowsiness are hopping on one foot, swapping pants with another occupant of the car, and trying to remember the name of good Rob Schneider movies.
Experts who have looked at the problem say the only safe way to combat drowsy driving is to pull over to a safe parking spot and take a 20-minute nap. Then drive to the closest safe resting spot--such as a motel, friend's house, or the meadow where Bambi frolicked with Thumper--and sleep.
"With 'drowsy driving' on the increase," Ciezadlo said, "it is increasingly important drivers do all they can to prevent this problem, including getting sufficient sleep and avoiding alcohol."
You are getting sleepy
To deal with this deadly problem, Ford Motor Company has announced findings from a comprehensive five-month study, resulting in new technology designed to keep drowsy drivers awake.
The study is the most complete controlled laboratory research ever conducted on the difficult problem of drowsiness behind the wheel. Subjects were required to stay up all night and were not allowed to drink caffeine after 6 pm the night before the study took place. The sleep-deprived drivers were then sent on a three-hour drive--not behind the wheel of a car--but behind the wheel of Ford's state-of-the-art, extremely realistic VIRTTEX driver simulator--a smart move since the simulator can't roll over.
The researchers found that so many drivers veered off the virtual track during the test that there would have been numerous serious accidents had they actually been on the road. A drowsy driver moving at 70 miles-per-hour will travel nearly the length of a football field if he or she falls asleep for even two and a half seconds, and most people sleep a lot longer than that every night.
As the drowsy subjects drove the simulator, researchers experimented with several methods of keeping them alert, such as the use of various lights and sounds. Ford expects to use what it learned from the study in new technology to be introduced into its cars, beginning with its Volvo brand probably because Volvo drivers expect such safeguards given the marque's long involvement in safety issues.
According to the National Sleep Foundation's 2002 "Sleep in America" poll, about one-half of adult drivers (about 100 million people) say they've driven a vehicle in the past year while feeling drowsy. Almost two in 10 people (about 32 million) have actually fallen asleep at the wheel. One percent (approximately two million drivers) had an accident because they dozed off or were too tired to drive. One half of one percent was too tired to even finish the survey.
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