Driving this long weekend? Road safety needs good rest
Hitting the road while tired can be as dangerous as drink driving, a CQUniversity sleep researcher is telling road-trippers ahead of the long weekend.
CQUniversity academic Dr Madeline Sprajcer has led research, finding that less than five hours of sleep in the previous 24 hours means a driver is just as likely to have a vehicle crash, as if they were over the legal limit for alcohol.
The study, published in Nature and Science of Sleep last year, highlights the ongoing issue of tired drivers on our roads.
“We know about 20 per cent of all vehicle crashes are caused by fatigue…and in the past 20 years, that figure hasn’t changed, it’s a persistent issue for road safety,” Dr Sprajcer said.
“In that time, policing of drink driving has significantly decreased the number of crashes caused by alcohol – so we’re exploring what can change to reduce fatigued driving, too.”
Dr Sprajcer is part of CQUniversity’s Appleton Institute, a flagship multidisciplinary research initiative with a focus on health and wellbeing during work, rest and play.
The fatigued driving finding was based on scientific evidence from laboratory and field studies, and found that having less than four to five hours of sleep in the previous 24 hours is associated with an approximate doubling of the risk of a vehicle crash.
That is the same risk of a crash seen when drivers have a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05 per cent.
“Not only this, but a driver’s risk of a crash significantly increases with each hour of sleep lost the night before,” Dr Sprajcer said.
“Some studies even suggested that when a driver had between zero and four hours of sleep the previous night, they may be up to 15 times more likely to have a crash.
“Long weekends in Australia often see spikes in road accidents, and even fatalities. Every driver can reduce the risk by ensuring they’ve had enough sleep to get behind the wheel.
“And if you’ve had less than five hours, the science says you should stay off the road and rest up before the drive.”
Transcript
Driving while fatigued can be as bad as driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. When we think about the level of impairment that we see because of fatigue, and compare that to the level of impairment we see due to alcohol...
essentially what we found is that there's a really significant increase in risk when you've had five or fewer hours of sleep in the previous 24 hours.
And when we looked at the amount of risk you see there, we see approximately a doubling of the risk of a vehicle crash.
And so that's really interesting because from a scientific perspective, if we can compare that to the level of risk we see based on drink driving, we also see about a doubling of the risk of a vehicle crash when you're at the limit, so .05 blood alcohol concentration.
So if we're thinking about, you know, from a society level what level of risk we're willing to accept, it's probably about five hours of sleep is what you really need to be getting behind the wheel.
