This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Information, Sleep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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October 21, 2009
There has been a lot of work towards raising the awareness of drunk drivers which has been a very worthwhile cause. It would seem we have another group of “silent” dangerous drivers who are involved in as many accidents as drunk drivers. They are sleepy drivers.
Take a look at these statistics from the National Sleep Foundation on Sleepy Drivers:
- Sleepy drivers are the cause of 1550 deaths per year
- Sleepy drivers cause 71,000 injuries per year
- Sleepy drivers cause $12.5 billion in property losses and lost productivity per year
Another fact from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports 1 million accidents are caused every year by driver inattention. Two factors contributing to this are sleep deprivation and fatigue. Even the drunkest driver has some sort of ability to react and respond to an emergency situation, albeit impaired, but a sleeping driver is totally unaware so he does not react.
We need to stop placing ourselves, our passengers, other drivers and their passengers plus pedestrians at risk by being sleepy drivers. 100,000 traffic accidents could be prevented every year if everyone made sure they had enough sleep before operating any type of a motor vehicle.
Our brains do give us warning signs that we are in need of sleep:
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Trouble keeping eyes open
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Blinking frequently
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Head begins to nod
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Drifting vehicle within the lane or into the oncoming lane
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Repetitive yawning or rubbing of eyes
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Unable to remember last few miles
It’s simple, if you are sleepy while driving - pull over! It may save a life!
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