More About Driver Fatigue

Summer Fatigue Facts
Survival Strategies

Fatigue produces profound physical symptoms that impact driving ability in many of the same ways as alcohol consumption – also with deadly results. Sleepiness impairs performance and may ultimately lead to falling asleep at the wheel. But long before a driver is close to falling asleep, fatigue impairs reaction time, vigilance, attention and information processing. In fact, scientists contend that long blinks and eye closures are poor indicators of when to pull over because by the time they occur drivers are already well into the danger zone.

Fatigue-related crashes are likely to be serious and often involve a single vehicle leaving the roadway. The over-tired driver, who is usually traveling on a high-speed road, often does not awake soon enough to avoid the crash.

A March 2003 NHTSA report found that 1.35 million drivers involved in a car crash in the previous five years attributed it to drowsiness. Drowsiness is listed in police reports as the primary causal factor in 100,000 crashes per year, resulting in 76,000 injuries and 1,500 deaths. Unlike alcohol use, no blood, breath or other measurable test is currently available to quantify levels of sleepiness at crash sites.

Fatigue is a special risk in the summer. In a study of 400 drivers, 57% said they were more likely to drive when overtired or fatigued when driving home from a weekend getaway, and 59% said they were more likely to drive when fatigue-impaired because they wanted to get to a summer destination in one night. In the same study, families with children were six times more likely to drive home from a long day trip while fatigued than people without children. Half of those surveyed said the most aggravating time to drive during the summer was on Friday evenings on the way to a weekend getaway, followed by Sunday evenings returning from a trip (27%.)

Sleepiness reduces optimum reaction time and even a moderate degree of sleepiness can impair a driver’s ability to stop in time to avoid a collision. Very small decrements in reaction time can have a profound effect on crash risk, especially at high speeds. Lack of sleep also causes deficits in information processing. Processing and integrating information takes longer if the driver is sleepy, and the accuracy of short-term memory decreases, affecting performance.

Around the clock:

Among the factors that increase the likelihood of a fatigue-related crash are:

Fatigue is a special risk in the summer. In one study of 400 drivers:

Survival strategies