Sleep Deprivation Has Adverse Effects On Driving Performance.

According to Vila (2006), data through the year 2003 indicated that more officers were killed by “unattended adverse events than during the commission of felonies.” Fatigue resulting from reduced sleep, both in duration and quality, is a significant factor in unintentional injuries and fatalities in the law enforcement community. Two hundred eighty seven (287) of the officers involved in the study reported being involved in a motor vehicle collision during the follow up period. Fatigue and drowsiness resulting from sleep disorders is believed to be a contributing factor in a significant number of these collisions. Across 2009-2010, more than a third of line of duty deaths were attributed to motor vehicle crashes (NLEMF, 2010). Sleepiness and fatigue are major factors in motor vehicle collisions and drivers suffering from excessive sleepiness are not only involved in more collisions, but the collisions are often more serious and result in more severe injuries (Drake, 2010). While, officers involved in the study regarded drowsy driving to be as serious and as dangerous as drunk driving, almost half of the participants reported falling asleep while driving 1-2 times a month due to excessive sleepiness (JAMA, 2011). The loss of only two hours of sleep over just a one week period was found to have the same decrease in performance comparable with individuals after 24 hours of staying awake.

“It eases off the movement of the focal sensory system, including the brain. Liquor could influence you’re driving by bringing on: impaired vision, reduced response times, reduced fixation and vigilance, feeling more loose and languid, which may cause a driver to nod off at the worst possible time, difficulty in understanding tactile data, difficulty concentrating on other traffic, and failure to obey street principles. The aftereffect impacts of liquor, the following day, can make it hard to think and drive securely, and may make you nod off while driving. An individual who has been drinking liquor may imagine that in the event that they are particularly watchful, they will have the capacity to drive securely. Notwithstanding, the liquor may have influenced their perspective and knowledge of reality. Their activities and reactions may be very distinctive to what is really required, yet they may be unconscious of the amount their driving abilities have been influenced”

Driver fatigue may not be illegal but it is lethal. Fatigue is a discreet killer that occurs for drivers no matter their age, their driving experience, how long the trip is or the time of day. In 2012, there were more fatigue related crashes than drink driving crashes in NSW. When someone doesn’t sleep for the previous 17 years before driving, they have an equal effect to someone who drives with a blood alcohol level of 0.05. A study by Nordbakke and Sagberg in 2007 concluded that drivers had a standard knowledge on preventative actions and the factors influencing the risk of falling asleep. But, despite this knowledge, drivers continue to drive on the road whilst tired.

As a future sleep technician, and a person who has suffered personally from the aftermath of a friend falling asleep at the wheel, the topic of "drowsy driving" is one concerns me. Studies show that there has been a significant rise in sleep-related crashes since the initiation of Maggie's Law in 2003, but only one recorded

When a person have a sleep disorder, they may not be able to drive as they may sleep during the day or they may have fatigue as a symptoms.

Your reflexes may be slower. You may not see potential dangers until it is too late. You may even fall asleep at the wheel. According to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a study they conducted, one in every 25 adult drivers admitted to having fallen asleep while driving within the last 30 days. If you find that you are often driving tired, do something about it. If you suspect that you have a sleep disorder, visit a physician or a sleep specialist. If you are not getting enough sleep, do something so you can get more

Car accidents have been a big cause of teen deaths. Traffic safety administration stated that “ Students who are sleep-deprived has reduced actions times, slower eye movements, and decreased the ability to make quick decisions. In fact, a person with fewer than four hours of sleep has the same driving characteristics as someone who is legally drunk” (Wahlstrom 3). When students are driving to school in the morning it is usually dark outside. When it is dark outside they can’t see everything. Even if they look away for one quick moment a kid could be crossing the road to get on the bus and all of sudden get hit.

Sleep is essential for optimal human function. In fact, a lack of sleep can actually affect important cognitive functions, like memory. A 2007 study added to the already substantial evidence that even acute total sleep deprivation impairs attentiveness, working memory, and reaction time in various tasks (Alhola, Polo-Kantola). One such way to further this investigation of the effects of sleep deprivation on memory is through the Memory Interference Test, or MIT. MIT is a program designed by Gaston Pfluegl, Ph.D., and Enrique Lopez, Psy. D., at UCLA to test the memory of students. Along with a memory test, the MIT also anonymously collected the physical states, mental states, and demographics of each student test subject, providing a substantial database through which students can test hypotheses, such as the connection between sleep deprivation and memory. Since the MIT requires short-term memory recall, the hours of sleep a student had before taking the test could have a noticeable effect on his or her performance. An unprecedented study this year found that sleep deprivation may actually even induce false memories, which would certainly impact a student taking the MIT because the test requires the subject to recognize images that have been previously presented to them (Frenda, et al). The hypothesis is that students who slept 8 hours before the test will perform better on the MIT than students who only slept 4 hours. The null hypothesis is that students who had adequate

Attention: 72,000. That’s how many crashes occurred in 2013 due to drowsy driving. This number is in the US alone. Drowsy driving is a big issue, and it hasn’t been stressed enough. We’ve all heard about the risks of drinking and driving, but not many people advocate driving with a healthy amount of sleep. Having recently read an article on this topic, I was shocked by how dangerous this really is,

Obesity is a significant contributing risk factor for a higher prevalence of fatigue and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in the general population. Obesity is also linked to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). These associations represent significant occupational hazards during the performance of complex tasks such as, piloting an aircraft, driving trucks, and operating public transit vehicles, which require workers to have constant focus, attention and vigilance (Dinges et al., 1997; Dagan et al., 2006; Cohen et al., 2010). Therefore, even a slight increase in risk could have substantial impact on the population attributable risk, given the incidence rate of fatigue related crashes and the high prevalence of obesity among drivers (Dixon et al., 2007). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) provided estimates that approximately 20% of all serious injuries caused by motor vehicle crashes are associated with drowsy driving (Garbarino et al., 2001). The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) gave evidence that over 30% of truck driver fatal crashes are fatigue

Despite having slept for only four hours, the man claimed to have felt alert when he left home, but had entered microsleep when he drove off the road and into the victims (“Driver who killed mother, injured baby is jailed for two years,” 2016). Across the U.S., state governments are raising awareness around the dangers of driving while drowsy, mostly with “Prevention Weeks”, but sometimes with punitive laws. For example, in New Jersey it is illegal to drive if you have been without sleep for 24 hours (“Summaries of Current Drowsy Driving Laws,”2015). While it should be obvious to most that it would be irresponsible to drive under such acute sleep deprivation, cognitive deficiencies can occur in those who are chronically sleep deprived. In fact, losing just a couple of hours of sleep on a consecutive basis can be harmful. Studies show the that the effects of sleep deprivation accumulates over time and that as a “slept debt” increases, reaction time decreases (Dinges DF, Pack F, Williams K et al., 1997, as cited in Bonnet & Arand, 2003). Since the CDC estimates that up to one third of Americans between 18-60 get less than 7 hours of sleep each night (Liu et al., 2016), this is an issue many of us should be concerned

Thesis Statement: Sleep deprivation is harmful to college students because it hinders student learning and jeopardizes their safety while driving.

Potentiality ability competency strength and driving skills are severely affected. It is both unsafe and insecure. This kind of driving affects the functioning and metabolism of the body. The cure is sometimes beyond repair. Driver's alertness state of being inactive unobservant unstable inattentive thoughtless fluctuating and irrational thinking are all arbitrated leading to a surpassing chance of getting into road accidents and crashing. As drowsy driving is the major cause for roads accidents and crashing this kind of carefree and incautious should be avoided at the

Also, it has been discovered that there is an inverse relationship between drowsy driving and age and it is proven that’s the older population have a lesser chance of getting involved in a crash due to sleep drowsiness The age-related discordance between high rates of sleep disturbances and low rates of drowsy driving could be explained in at least two ways. First, older persons who have sleep disturbances stop driving, whereas those who continue to drive do not have a sleep disturbance. This is unlikely because prior work has shown that a substantial proportion of older drivers have sleep disturbances, including insomnia, daytime drowsiness, and high sleep apnea risk, but this prior work was cross-sectional, and thus it remains uncertain whether sleep disturbances are associated longitudinally with driving cessation. Second, older drivers who have sleep disturbances may not experience drowsy driving because they change their driving

There are many factors that could potentially have an impact on an individual’s performance on cognitive function assessments. Sleep is one of the factors that impact the way an individual performs everyday tasks. Being fully rested and having a full night’s rest give individuals the ability to make clear decisions, allow them to solve complex problems and comprehend the world around them. Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, hinders people by not allowing them to think about their options and by making it harder for them to focus on the task at hand.