Sleepy Driving in Cincinnati is a Problem

It’s late and time to go home after a really amazing dinner at Skyline Chili. You might be feeling a little relaxed, maybe a bit fatigued after a long day at work, but you are sure that driving is not going to be a problem. Besides you live only a few miles away. You jump in your car full and relaxed and the next thing you realize is that Road Hypnotism has sent in and you are drifting in and out of your lane. What do you do? Before you answer, read below:

A recent study conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center found Drowsy driving crashes can be hard to detect due to difficult and unreliable reporting, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates there are about 100,000 sleep-related crashes per year and 1,550 fatalities.

After staying awake for 24 hours straight, a person will be about as impaired as if he had had enough alcohol to be legally drunk in most states, a study says. Australian researchers tested 40 people to create a “blood alcohol equivalent” for different levels of impairment from sleeplessness.In one experiment, participants stayed awake for 28 hours. In the other, they drank alcohol every half hour until they reached a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10 percent. That’s the drunken-driving standard in most American states.

Every half hour, the subjects took a computerized test of hand-eye coordination.

Results showed that after 24 hours of sleeplessness, participants were about as impaired as they were at the 0.10 percent level of blood alcohol. After 17 hours, they were about as impaired as they were with an alcohol level of 0.05 percent, which many Western countries define as legally drunk, the researchers said.

The State of New Jersey has now made any injury crash involving fatigue, a felony.

The only way to combat drowsy driving is to pull over and rest for the evening, or take an extended nap. This is it. Don’t rely on coffee or energy drinks. Eating will just make you even more sleepy….the bottom line is PULL OVER and REST. Chances are if you neglect to ad hear to this very simple requirement, you will end up on the side of the road much like the guy in the video below.

Thankfully, he wasn’t killed. But it’s hard to deny the importance of not driving drowsy.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. We’re just doing everything we can to keep the roadways safe for everyone.