{"id":2503,"date":"2017-12-11T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T19:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/?p=2503"},"modified":"2022-06-23T10:17:35","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T00:17:35","slug":"how-does-being-tired-affect-your-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/how-does-being-tired-affect-your-driving\/","title":{"rendered":"How does being tired affect your driving?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We have a sleep\/wake cycle that affects how tired we are. We can fight this cycle, but only for so long: eventually, our body&#8217;s requirement for sleep will be too strong and we will fall asleep. If this happens while you are driving then the results can be quite disastrous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How does lack of sleep affect your driving?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Lack of sleep causes a driver to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Vary their driving speed, gradually slowing down then realising, so they speed back up again, then repeating that cycle.<\/li><li>Vary their lane position, finding it hard to follow a straight line within the lane, often being warned about crossing the lane lines by running over <a href=\"\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/what-are-raised-profile-line-markings-or-rumble-strips\/\">lane markings<\/a> or <a href=\"\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/cats-eyes-retro-reflective-pavement-markers-and-other-road-markings\/\">cats&#8217; eyes<\/a>.<\/li><li>Have a slow reaction time to hazards, often having to brake late because they didn&#8217;t notice a sharp corner or a vehicle ahead that had slowed down.<\/li><li>Miss hazards due to a reduction in the ability to perceive what a hazard is.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When you&#8217;ve been awake 17-19 hours, it has the same effect on your driving as having a blood alcohol content (BAC) of around 0.05%, which is the same as the legal limit. When you&#8217;ve been awake for more than 24 hours it&#8217;s the same as having a BAC of around 0.1% or twice the legal limit. Bear in mind that losing sleep over a long period of time can cause a sleep debt which can have the same effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What&#8217;s a sleep debt?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you consistently get less than the amount of sleep you need, you&#8217;ll build up a sleep debt and this can be caused by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>A partial reduction in sleep time, e.g. you were disturbed during the night, or you went to bed late but had to get up early<\/li><li>A chronic reduction in sleep time, e.g. you have to shorten your sleep hours on a repeated basis<\/li><li>A total elimination of sleep, e.g. you don&#8217;t get any sleep during the night due to insomnia, or you were kept awake on a long flight<\/li><li>Sleep fragmentation, e.g. you have a new baby, your partner snores, etc<\/li><li>Circadian disruption, e.g. you have sleep apnoea, you do shift work, you have jetlag, etc<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The majority of people need 7-8 hours&#8217; sleep, but a reduction in sleep can affect different people in different ways. For example, a 1-hour reduction of sleep for one person might be the equivalent of a 2-hour sleep reduction for another person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What causes sleep?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There are three components to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The <strong>homeostatic<\/strong> component is your internal drive to go to sleep. From the moment you wake up, the homeostatic component builds until you go to sleep again.<\/li><li>The <strong>circadian<\/strong> component is the biological rhythm which, twice a day (between about 1-6am and 2-4pm) makes your body tired and more prone to sleep. It&#8217;s best not to drive during these times, if possible.<\/li><li>The <strong>arousal<\/strong> component consists of stimulation that reduces your sleepiness.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Arousal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Things that influence sleep arousal are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Movement, e.g. changing driving position<\/li><li>Mental stimulation, e.g. listening to a podcast<\/li><li>Chemical stimulation, e.g. caffeine, cocaine (note: you shouldn&#8217;t be using cocaine and driving)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Arousal effects don&#8217;t last very long and do nothing to change the underlying requirement to sleep. The only way is to actually get some sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are sleepy and you need to reduce your sleepiness, a nap of 20 minutes is the best option. Much more than this and you&#8217;ll feel groggy when you wake up. The least effective measures are opening the window, singing, listening to music, energy drinks and talking to a passenger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How many crashes are caused by sleepiness?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a study by the Centre for Accident Research &amp; Road Safety at the Queensland University of Technology, 57% of drivers drive when sleepy, 73% of drivers continue to drive once aware of their increasing levels of sleepiness, and drivers under 25 are over-represented in sleep-related crashes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A study by AAA Foundation in America found that 21% of all fatal vehicle accidents involved a fatigued driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s more risk of being in a sleep-related crash if you are driving between 1-6am and 2-4pm, you do shift work, you have unrealistic work schedules and you&#8217;re in poor health. Fatigue is a particular problem for long-distance truck drivers who drive at night to avoid traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you are fighting sleep your body starts to take microsleeps where it shuts down for a few seconds at a time. Ignore these and your body will enter into proper sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Signs of sleepiness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you notice any of these then you should start to think about pulling over and having a short nap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Increased blinking<\/li><li>Lack of concentration<\/li><li>Increased frequency of changing your posture (obviously excluding other causes like that you have cramp)<\/li><li>Your head is nodding<\/li><li>Yawning<\/li><li>Rubbing your eyes<\/li><li>Drifting within your lane<\/li><li>Difficulty keeping your eyes in focus<\/li><li>Irritability<\/li><li>Difficulty maintaining the same speed<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Find out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drivingtests.co.nz\/course\/fatigue-management-course\/\">more causes and symptoms of fatigue<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have a sleep\/wake cycle that affects how tired we are. We can fight this cycle, but only for so long: eventually, our body&#8217;s requirement for sleep will be too strong and we will fall asleep. If this happens while<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/how-does-being-tired-affect-your-driving\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[205],"class_list":["post-2503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","tag-fatigue-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4705,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions\/4705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}