Sleep Deprivation and Traffic Accidents

Ten years ago, a former colleague of mine, a fineapnea, affects 15 million people in the United States.
teacher and person, was tragically killed in a carThis condition, characterized by suffocation and
accident in British Columbia. He was on vacation withoxygen deprivation which wake the subjects up
his daughter who miraculously survived the accident.several times in the course of the night, is responsible
What happened was a classic case of sleepfor daytime sleepiness and fatigue. Put these
deprivation: my friend was anxious to make his waysubjects on the highway and we have a recipe for
to a chosen destination and despite his fatigue anddisastrous traffic accidents.Perhaps an examination of
the fact that he had been on the road for over 6the influence sleep deprivation has on our mental
hours, he made the decision to drive through theacuity and performance level can shed light on how
night. He never made it there.That there is a directwe can protect ourselves and others from the
correlation between sleep deprivation and trafficdisastrous consequences of sleep fatigue.What
accidents cannot be disputed. In 1998, 24,318 deathshappens to you when you are sleep deprived?
were cited from accidents related to sleepAccording to the Traffic Research Center, these are
deprivation in the US. There were as well 2, 474,430the influences of sleep deprivation on performance:a)
disabling injuries resulting from accidents whereSlower reaction time: sleeplessness slows down your
decreased mental efficiency and attentiveness duereflexes; reaction time slows down, preventing you
to sleep loss was the major causative factor. In fact,from stopping in times of danger.b) Decrease in
a major review conducted in 1996 suggested thatconcentration levels: When you are overly tired, your
the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez, the destruction ofattention span decreases. Most people are subject to
the space shuttle Challenger, the nuclear accident ata decrease in attention every 90-120 minutes;
Chernobyl( costing over 50,000 lives) and the nearhowever, sleepiness makes this decrease even
nuclear accidents at the Three Mile Island and Peachworse and it can cause accidents when you fall
Bottom reactors were all associated with sleepasleep at the wheel.c) Disorder in information
deprivation of the personnel involved.Sleepprocessing: Sleepiness is very much like being under
deprivation is often caused by sleep disorders whichthe influence of alcohol or drugs. When you are
are unknown to the subjects themselves. Sleepsleepy, your mental and psychomotor skills diminish. In
apnea, for example, is a common cause for sleepone study, a group of subjects were kept awake for
deficit. A study at the Sleep Disorders and Research28 hours; another group was given alcoholic drinks
Center of Stanford University Medical School showedevery half hour. When both groups were tested for
that truck drivers identified with sleep disorderedhand-eye coordination, the ones who were sleep
breathing had a two-fold higher accident rate thandeprived performed equally bad as the ones with 0.5
drivers without sleep-disordered breathing. Sleepblood alcohol level.
disordered breathing, commonly known as sleep