ONE IN 10 drivers has admitted to falling asleep at the wheel, according to research carried out for the Road Safety Authority (RSA).
However the survey of 1,000 people also shows that more drivers are aware of the dangers of fatigue and how to prevent it, with two-thirds taking a break within two hours of driving compared with about half last year.
“This is a very positive shift in behaviour as research tells us that driver fatigue would be a contributory factor in as many as one in five driver deaths in Ireland and can be as serious as drink-driving,” said RSA chief executive Noel Brett.
He is urging the many people who are travelling over the coming Easter weekend to be aware of the consequences to “you, your family and other road-users of driving while tired”.
Despite improvements in behaviour, Mr Brett is still concerned about prevailing driver myths for staying awake such as opening the window when sleepy (42 per cent) or turning on the radio (15 per cent). “Opening your window or turning up the radio will not keep you awake,” he said.
The RSA recommends taking a nap and having a caffeinated drink to help tiredness and almost half of drivers surveyed take these steps when tired.
Collisions relating to tiredness are three times more likely to result in serious death or injury because of the high-speed impact and lack of avoiding action, the RSA warns.
Of those drivers who admitted to nodding off at the wheel, one in five only woke when they had driven off the road or across the centre of the road, while 5 per cent collided with another car or an object, the survey showed.
One-third of people who fell asleep at the wheel had been driving for just one hour, with almost half of drivers (45 per cent) falling asleep between 5pm and midnight, the survey revealed.
Charlie Mitchell’s brother Fran died in a fatal crash after he fell asleep at the wheel during a 40- minute journey from Liffey Valley to Greystones in July 2005.
Fran was a psychiatric nurse who worked a lot of night shifts; that night he had worked a half shift and went training for a marathon. “He then went to the cinema, never thinking maybe he should go home. He should have gone home,” Charlie said.
The RSA is also raising awareness about sleep apnoea as part of the campaign because undiagnosed sufferers of the treatable condition are at risk of falling asleep at the wheel.
“Because of their condition they are unable to get proper sleep,” said Prof Walter McNicholas, director of the sleep disorder unit at St Vincent’s hospital, Dublin. “This results in excessive daytime sleepiness and places them in the high risk group for falling asleep at the wheel.”
Some 100,000 are estimated to have sleep apnoea in Ireland, but just 10-15 per cent of them are diagnosed. Signs of the condition include snoring, stopping breathing when asleep and being excessively sleepy in the daytime.
So far this year, 40 people have been killed on the State’s roads compared to 57 at the end of March 2009 and 77 by the end of March 2008.
