Experts: Driving Tired Is Like Driving Drunk

[Quixote1818]

I think there needs to be more education on the dangers of driving tired. It should have almost the same stigma attached to it as driving drunk does. If not, one of these days some child will be killed by someone who was tired and his/her motivated parent will start a campaign to increase awareness. Why wait for that parent to come along?


Experts: Driving Tired Is Like Driving Drunk

One Australian study shows being awake for 18 hours straight produces an impairment equal to being drunk. It's the cause of some 100,000 accidents each year nationwide.

http://www.wptz.com/news/8301184/detail.html?subid=10101102


The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year. This results in an estimated 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses. These figures may be the tip of the iceberg, since currently it is difficult to attribute crashes to sleepiness.

* There is no test to determine sleepiness as there is for intoxication, i.e. a "Breathalyzer".


DrowsyDriving.org
http://www.sleepfoundation.org/site/c.huIXKjM0IxF/b.2418857/k.A5A7/DrowsyDrivingorg.htm

[mrcheerful]

1. Don't forget the cell phone users out there, after all driving without being able to set up a

quicky on your way home to wife and kids is not only a must but its a right. It amazes me how many people drive around thinking that they only need to pay attention to the road 1/10th of the total driving time.

[Ron Green]

3. My guess is that cell phone users are the most dangerous group of all, because

there are so many of them (far more than 18-hour insomniacs) and they operate during all hours and in all kinds of traffic. The hands-free nonsense is just that: it's not where your hands are, it's where your attention is - in this case, literally miles away.

[tyedyeto]

9. Hands free........

to me that is like talking to a passenger in the car. So, let's ban all passengers! Car pool lanes? Ban them, since the driver might be talking to someone in the car!

[Ron Green]

15. I think it's a very different situation to talk to a passenger from talking to someone on the other

end of a phone call. The passenger is in the car with you, experiencing the same dynamics of traffic and movement, while on the phone you're truly somewhere else, and someone in that other place is demanding your attention.

It's not the same at all, in my opinion.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Aaaah....... the sweet stench of moral equivalence attempts.

[Quixote1818]

4. It has nothing to do with moral equivalence. It has to do with getting killed

I think drinking and driving is worse morally, but if you are killed by someone who was tired, you are still just as dead as someone killed by someone who was drunk. Right now there is no stigma attached to driving while tired even though it's just like driving drunk (according to the research). Both are equally as irresponsible. I just think it needs more exposure.

I have driven while tired and nearly killed myself and could have killed others. I just don't want others to make the same mistake I made.

[valerief]

5. I hate tailgaters most of all, because there are more of them (half of all drivers) and

rear-ending someone at 75 mph is pretty dangerous.

[Berry Cool]

6. Agreed, it's all dangerous.

I think one of the best things people could be taught about driving is that it deserves your FULL attention--driving is not a multitasking situation. Ideally, no one would be driving, eating, drinking, talking on the phone, reading, changing radio stations and trying to discipline kids at the same time. Yet how many people try to do just that?

And getting sleepy is very insidious and dangerous. You can be dropping off before you know it, and all it takes a second of droopy eyes to produce disaster.

[girl gone mad]

7. I wish we would get to the point..

where cars could drive with minimal human input.

[Quixote1818]

10. Me too

There should be some kind of rail that you connect your car to. Once you are locked in then program in where you need to go and let the machines and computers do all the work. It could be done but would cost trillions and trillions to change everything over. Still, it's something that we should be moving towards.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

8. Though Undoubtedly Driving While Exhausted Is Dangerous, I'm Not Sure It's Anywhere Near As

dangerous as driving drunk.

There are like 17,000 fatalities per year due to drunk driving. That's just a bit more than your 1500. So that alone kind of disputes your argument.

Furthermore, I would think that there needs to be just a bitttttt more than "One Australian study" in order to give this any merit whatsoever.

Yes, driving tired for some can be extremely dangerous. Equivalent to driving drunk? Not by a long shot.

[Quixote1818]

11. 1,500 is the "tip of the iceberg"

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year. This results in an estimated 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses. These figures may be the tip of the iceberg, since currently it is difficult to attribute crashes to sleepiness.

* There is no test to determine sleepiness as there is for intoxication, i.e. a "Breathalyzer".


As they said, it's the tip of the iceberg because you can't do a blood test for sleepiness. The real number is probably closer to 10 or 15,000. Probably 99% of the time people who fell asleep and died, no one will know that they fell asleep. They can test their blood but it won't show they fell asleep or were too tired to drive. It's impossible to put a real number on.

I personally know two people who have fallen asleep and gotten into accidents. I don't know anyone who was drinking and got in an accident but that is probably just me. The problem with sleep deprivation is that if you fall asleep you have ZERO control and you WILL end up in an accident. My Dad was one of them. He flew right off a highway south of Grand Junction, Colorado, thank goodness he was OK. I nearly went off the road once when feeling sleepy. I have heard that most Truckers who get in accidents had sleep deprivation.

It's more of a problem on the highways than in the city. People driving for hours into the night then becoming almost hypnotized by the road. If you don't do a lot of country driving you probably are not aware of how common it is and how easy it is to start feeling tired on a long drive. I drive 40,000 miles a year and frequently find myself getting sleepy. It's something I have to deal with every week. Now at the first sign of feeling sleepy I find a motel or pull over and nap. It's just not worth dying over.

[SoCalDem]

16. I almost drove into a train once. If the guy next to me had not honked

I would have hit the train.. I had to be at the office at 4:45 AM, and had a 60 mile one way commute on california freeways.. I was ALWAYS sleep deprived :(

I had my eyes open, but my brain was on auto pilot :(

[pitohui]

18. yes, and i'm sure "education" would have helped you tons!

who doesn't know that it's better not to drive while tired, and who the hell gets any choice in the matter if they want to keep their jobs?

"educating" people about the hazards of tired driving sounds like code for "let's put more money in GOP con artist pockets for telling people shit they already know"

[Quixote1818]

14. Here are some other stats

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/3950/1/Sleep-Deprivation-and-Traffic-Accidents.html

Not sure why these are so much higher. They must be from a different study:

That there is a direct correlation between sleep deprivation and traffic accidents cannot be disputed. In 1998, 24,318 deaths were cited from accidents related to sleep deprivation in the US. There were as well 2,474,430 disabling injuries resulting from accidents where decreased mental efficiency and attentiveness due to sleep loss was the major causative factor. In fact, a major review conducted in 1996 suggested that the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez, the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl (costing over 50,000 lives) and the near nuclear accidents at the Three Mile Island and Peach Bottom reactors were all associated with sleep deprivation of the personnel involved.

[Rabrrrrrr]

24. Your math is errant.

Citing statistics only helps if we know the total of drunk driving accidents as a ratio of all drunk drivers, versus accidents due to tiredness as a ratio of all tired drivers.

Citing absolute numbers means nothing to the statement "driving tired is as dangerous as driving drunk", which is a statement (and a study) about the affect of tiredness on one's driving, which is equivalent to that of driving drunk; not the statistical likelihood of causing of an accident.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

26. Sometimes Common Sense Is Adequate.

For example, I'm not sure that many would readily deduce that more people drive drunk than drive tired. I'd say it's a far more likely probability that many more people drive tired each day than do drunk. If that is the case, then my case is even stronger once the ratios are thrown in.

[ProudDad]

12. As is driving while talking on a cell phone...

Driving While on Cell Phone Worse Than Driving While Drunk

http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2006/06/29/hscout533489.html

From Forbes no less...

The shit I see people on the phone do while they're allegedly driving down the street...

It's getting to the point where I see a stupid move and when I get up to the car, sure as shit, it's some (usually woman -- no offense, that's the facts) on her cellphone -- yapping away while drifting from lane to lane...

[Quixote1818]

13. Wow! That is one scarry study! Thanks for posting! nt

[RC Quake]

23. One thing I've noticed

Women generally slow way down when on their cell phones and men tailgate. Which is worse I ask you?

[pitohui]

17. by all means let us criminalize everything

it used to be an accident was just that -- an accident

i have been rear-ended by a woman who was tired after working a full shift in a busy hospital, yes, i was hurt, yes, i was angry, but what is the alternative? for no one to be able to drive home after work? when you are tired, that is too bad so sad but you still have to drive home or to another safe location to sleep

i have also lost a friend who died in a single car accident after working a double shift because she was tired

again, what is the alternative? for people not to work? you might as well shoot us now because it is an unfortunate reality that most of us must work to earn money to be allowed to live in the first place

human beings get tired, we need to deal with that, we do NOT need to criminalize driving while tired or to create ligitation over driving while tired every time there is an accident

in most of this country there is NO safe public transport, to criminalize driving while tired is to criminalize being unlucky, all of us get tired, ALL OF US must drive while tired after work or during an emergency or whatever, so the real intent of criminalizing people who drive while tired is to hit somebody when they're already down and to utterly destroy them or their survivors because they were in an accident

if we cared about driving while drunk or tired or distracted by worries, we'd have a safe public transportation system, we don't give a flying fuck about that, all we care about is using the excuse of a tragedy to pile on and destroy the affected person or family even more

i'm damn sick of it

nobody is driving while tired for the fun of it, they're driving while tired because if you don't work, you're not allowed to eat in this world

[ProudDad]

20. There is NO reason that people

in the U.S. should be as overworked as they are.

That's the solution, the 20 hour week!!!

The only thing those extra freakin' 40 hours a week are doing is lining the pockets of the idle rich. Fuck 'em.

20 hour week!!!

4 week vacation!!!

Universal Health Care!!!

Less Consumption, more LIVING!!!

Fuck Capitalism...

[KillCapitalism]

21. I could agree with that!

A 20-hour work week would be great!

[guitar man]

27. hey hey now, not so fast

.....I'm up to 5 weeks vacation on my job, don't roll me back now...:evilgrin:

[Rabrrrrrr]

25. Pure bullshit. When I'm tired and driving, I pull over and take a nap.

It's not fucking rocket science.

[Rex]

19. I believe driving while the brain is 'under the influence' of anything is dangerous.

That car doesn't give a shit what you do.

[TwilightGardener]

22. Agreed. Used to work 12-hour night shifts as a nurse, and had an hour-long drive

home in the AM. Most times I didn't even remember the trip home. Can't tell you how many times I caught myself nodding off and drifting into other lanes. I quit as soon as I could, and I won't work night shifts anymore.