Facts About Drowsy Driving Internationally

According to the National Sleep Foundation’s 2005 Sleep in America poll, 60% of adult drivers – about 168 million people – say they have driven a vehicle while feeling drowsy in the past year, and more than one-third, (37% or 103 million people), have actually fallen asleep at the wheel! 

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. 

According to data from Australia, England, Finland, and other European nations, all of whom have more consistent crash reporting procedures than the U.S., drowsy driving represents 10 to 30 percent of all crashes.

The prevalence of sleep-related crashes varies from country to country. Driver sleepiness has been found the cause of between 1.5% (in the United States) to over 30% (on UK motorways) of crashes, and as much as 40% of fatal crashes on the New York State highway (Rayner, Flatley and Horne, 1998; Flatley and Rayner, 1995

Resarch in Australia:

Around 20% of fatal road accidents involve driver fatigue. According to VicRoads Road Accident Facts Victoria, 1998 Edition, about 30% of severe single vehicle crashes in rural areas involve the driver being fatigued.

A study conducted by the Adelaide Centre for Sleep Research concluded:

•    a person who has been awake for 17 hours faces the same risk of a crash as a person who has a BAC reading of 0.05 g/100ml. They are therefore twice as likely to have an accident as a person with a zero blood alcohol content who is not fatigued.
•    Drivers who have been awake for 24 hours will have a driving performance similar to a person who has a BAC of 0.1 g/100ml. They are seven times more likely to have an accident.

[Via Transport Accident Commission, Victoria Australia]