When people are driving and they begin to feel tired, they often try to keep going. They don’t feel that being fatigued while driving is all that dangerous, and they would rather get to their destination on time.
However, safety experts would recommend that they get off the road as soon as they start to become so fatigued. The reason for this is that drowsy driving has been linked to as many as 800 annual deaths and 50,000 injuries. Tired drivers cause car accidents every single day, and the cost can be measured in lives and severe injuries.
How many people fall asleep?
This problem begins with drivers who are simply tired behind the wheel. They’re not asleep, but they have slow reaction times and they don’t take in events around them as comprehensively as alert drivers. This can lead to a lot of different driving errors, such as breaking too late or not reacting to changes in traffic ahead of the vehicle.
But the same study that linked so many deaths to drowsy driving also found that about one out of every 25 people actively fell asleep while driving the car. This study only included legal adults who are over 18 years old, and it also only asked them about the previous month. So the total number of drivers who fall asleep behind the wheel is likely far larger over the course of a year, and if you included teenagers who just got their license.
If you have lost a loved one in a serious car accident or suffered massive injuries yourself, it may be time to look into your rights to seek financial compensation.