Blink you’re dead
It was 3 a.m., and John was only 30 minutes from home. He felt drowsy but was sure he could fight off the tiredness dragging at his eyelids. He turned up the music, opened his window and chewed harder on his gum. His eyes closed for only a few seconds. John died in his sleep. So did the family in the car he hit.
Photo: Mike Hayward
“In the long run there is no solution to sleepy drivers – apart from sleep,” says Dr Louise Reyner at Loughborough Sleep Research Centre.
How to prevent tiredness
TEXT: JANE JARNER
They call it the silent assassin because sleepiness kills. Tiredness is a huge road safety problem. So is denial. Sleepy drivers cause thousands of deaths and serious injuries every year, yet even professional truck drivers (and their bosses) don’t always acknowledge the danger.
The Loughborough Sleep Research Centre in the UK has spent more than a decade investigating sleepy drivers, analysing thousands of motorway accidents and demonstrating the true extent of the problem.
Working with, among others, the UK government, police forces and companies in the transport industry, and running special training courses for truck drivers and their trainers, the centre uses sophisticated software and a driving simulator. This evaluates driving behaviour and the physiological state of sleepy drivers using an electroencephalogram.
Sleepy drivers cannot fight back
The video of a sleepy driver at the wheel of the red car in an office at the centre is disturbing viewing. Monitored by around 20 carefully positioned electrodes, he has to indicate his level of tiredness according to the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (developed by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden).Level one is wide awake, nine is fighting sleep, 10 is asleep. Anything over seven is dangerous for a person driving. His long blinks are getting longer, but he shows no sign of stopping and shouts “five” when he has just driven with his eyes closed for several seconds.
Dr Louise Reyner, who has worked with the head of the centre, Professor Jim Horne, for more than 15 years, says they have proved categorically that no driver can fight sleep. Also, men are far more likely to continue driving despite drowsiness, and professional truck drivers can sleep with their eyes open!
Sleepy driver responsibility
The dangers of sleepy drivers have only been taken into account after accidents comparatively recently. Dr Reyner explains: “It’s like the attitude to drink driving – 40 years ago if you drank and had an accident, it wasn’t your fault. We’ve been able to show that when you’re falling asleep, you know you are.”
A likely time for accidents
The sleep centre’s in-depth research started in the early 1990s with police studies of motorway accidents. Various projects have looked at sleepiness and sleep patterns in factory, ship and shift workers, and all confirm the importance of our natural body clock. Everyone suffers a dip in the early hours and mid-afternoon.
The SRC’s software is now so reliable it has been used in court cases involving sleepy drivers in fatal accidents.
“We have a graph of when crashes occur, and there are peaks around 2 a.m., 5-7 a.m. and 4 p.m.,” says Dr Reyner. “Professional drivers can drive legally for 4.5 hours at a time, but if that is in the early hours they are vulnerable.”
Sleep increases road safety
She insists that any measures taken to stay awake should only be a temporary solution. One study showed that the energy drink Red Bull, with 80 mg of caffeine per can, is as, if not more, effective as a cup of coffee, which varies from 20 – 120 mg of caffeine.“The best advice to drivers is to avoid the situation,” Dr Reyner says. “Plan rest stops before you get sleepy. Plan your journey to avoid vulnerable times. Mild to moderate sleepiness lasts 1–1.5 hours, so there’s time to react.”
The phenomenon of professional truck drivers sleeping with their eyes open was first discovered in 1929. The Sleep Research Centre has yet to establish a scientific explanation.
Ageing truck drivers
Dr Reyner is especially concerned about truck drivers – an ageing population because younger men are not keen on driving long distances in increasingly heavy traffic. Many drivers are also overweight, which can contribute to daytime sleepiness by causing sleep apnoea.“There can be a problem with the soft palate, but 90 percent of cases are caused by being overweight,” she says. “They can be waking up hundreds of times a night and not know it.”
Sleepy drivers need sleep
The Src’s next studies will begin looking at the importance of motorway service stations and levels of daylight when accidents occur. But Dr Reyner says that in the long run there is no solution to sleepy drivers – apart from sleep.
“A lot of crashes involve people doing their best, working long hours and not liking to say no,” she says. “They end up taking unnecessary risks. Whatever anybody thinks or tells you, we all require the same amount of sleep. And driving is the most dangerous thing you can do unless you go bungee jumping or skydiving. Yet we get behind the wheel without a thought.”
Sleepy drivers
Sleepiness is the most likely cause of accidental death among truck drivers.
Sleep-related accidents are the most likely reason for totally writing off a truck, and there’s a significant chance that all trucks will be involved in at least one sleep-related crash during their lifetime.
Sleep-related accidents are three times more likely to result in death or serious injury.
Sleepy drivers kill more people than drunk drivers do.
Tiredness causes more than 20 percent of UK motorway accidents and at least 10 percent of all road accidents.
Falling asleep at the wheel results in worse accidents involving higher speeds and less avoiding action.
Men in particular will continue driving despite drowsiness.
A “long blink” or microsleep can last as long as 30 seconds.
Sleepy drivers over-estimate their alertness.
