When you are tired, your body reacts differently than it would if you were fully charged and awake. Much like alcohol, tiredness and fatigue have a very dangerous effect on the ability to drive safely. According to America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, impairments in human performance when driving tired include: slower reaction time, reduced attentiveness, and weakened information processing skills.
Some tragic (but unfortunately, accurate) data from the RSA (Road Safety Authority) of Ireland on driver fatigue reveals that 4,000 people are killed each year throughout Europe because of driver fatigue; collisions related to tiredness are three times more likely to result in death or serious injury; fatigue-related injuries are more likely to occur between 2:00-6:00 a.m. and 3:00-5:00 p.m.; motorists are thirteen times more likely to have a tiredness-related collision in the early morning than in the mid-morning or afternoon.
A study conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, based in the USA, found that people who get less than five hours of sleep at night are four to five times more likely to be involved in a car crash.
To avoid this and fight driver fatigue, there are some precautions you can take both before and during your journey.
Before driving:
Minimise risks while driving: