{"id":1125,"date":"2012-05-28T07:55:54","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T07:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/personalpolishing.wordpress.com\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2012-05-28T07:55:54","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T07:55:54","slug":"the-driving-danger-that-youre-ignoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/the-driving-danger-that-youre-ignoring\/","title":{"rendered":"The Driving Danger That You\u00e2\u0080\u0099re Ignoring"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Carole Jackson<\/strong>, Bottom Line Health<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Would you let a friend get behind the wheel of a car if he\u00e2\u0080\u0099d just been drinking and wasn\u00e2\u0080\u0099t steady on his feet? The answer is certainly “No.” But if you\u00e2\u0080\u0099re like most people in the US, you wouldn\u00e2\u0080\u0099t hesitate to let a friend drive when he\u00e2\u0080\u0099s incapacitated for another reason — drowsiness. It\u00e2\u0080\u0099s time to wake up to a danger that causes nearly 5,500 deaths a year.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, drowsy driving has gotten little attention compared with other driving dangers, including speeding, drinking alcohol, failing to fasten seat belts or being distracted by cell phones and other devices. That\u00e2\u0080\u0099s why the AAA\u00e2\u0080\u0099s recent campaign against drowsy driving caught my attention.<\/p>\n

I phoned J. Peter Kissinger, head of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, who told me that, in his opinion, drowsy driving is the largest unrecognized problem on the highways. In a recent AAA survey of 2,000 drivers age 16 and older, 32% said that they had driven while on the verge of falling asleep at some point in their lives, and 41% admitted to actually falling asleep at the wheel<\/em> at some point in their lives. And that\u00e2\u0080\u0099s despite the opinion of 96% that it\u00e2\u0080\u0099s unacceptable to drive while drowsy! So why don\u00e2\u0080\u0099t we practice what we preach?<\/p>\n

BELTS, BOOZE AND SPEED <\/strong><\/p>\n

The 96% have it right. According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), drowsiness is very similar in its effects to drunkenness. It causes slower reaction times, vision impairment, lapses in judgment and delays in processing information. In fact, NSF, which has joined AAA in publicizing the problem, says that being awake for more than 20 consecutive hours results in impairment equal to that caused by a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08%, which is the legal limit for driving in all states. And if you\u00e2\u0080\u0099ve undergone stress or slept poorly the night before, you don\u00e2\u0080\u0099t have to be awake for even that long to experience this level of impairment.<\/p>\n

So why are we just now learning about this? As Kissinger put it, traffic safety experts have focused on “belts, booze and speed” and more recently on distractions by cell phones and other electronic devices. Also, statistics, he said, have downplayed the role of drowsiness in fatal crashes because it\u00e2\u0080\u0099s often difficult for investigators to determine if the cause of a crash was drowsiness, drunkenness, distraction or a combination of factors — in other words, there\u00e2\u0080\u0099s no breathalyzer or blood test for drowsy driving. If a driver veers off the road and hits a tree, for instance, there\u00e2\u0080\u0099s often not any way to tell whether he fell asleep or instead was distracted when he tried to change the station on the radio.<\/p>\n

As a result, US traffic statistics typically show that drowsiness is involved in only about 3.6% of fatal crashes, compared with more than 30% for alcohol. AAA has now recalculated the statistics by extrapolating data from accident reports and adjusting for unknown or missing data (like drowsiness). New calculations, Kissinger said, show that nearly 17% of fatal car crashes result from drowsy driving — that\u00e2\u0080\u0099s on a par with distracted driving, which is thought to account for 16% of crashes. Plus, he added, 60% of people who “nod off” at the wheel do so when driving for less than one hour. “Drowsy driving doesn\u00e2\u0080\u0099t just occur on a long trip,” he said. “It can also happen on a shorter trip, such as driving home after a date night with your significant other.”<\/p>\n

YOUR STRATEGY FOR SAFETY<\/strong><\/p>\n

To prevent an accident caused by drowsiness, Kissinger urges us to…<\/p>\n