The harm of fatigue driving has always been underestimated, and its impact is similar to drunk driving.
Studies have shown that after 24 consecutive hours of sleep deprivation (no sleep), subjects are given psychomotor alertness tests (an assessment that examines sustained attention and alertness to assess how quickly participants respond to visual stimuli).
Participants showed a decrease in attention and alertness similar to that of motorists with a blood concentration of 0.08% ethanol[1] (a blood alcohol content of 80 mg/100 ml, as required by mainland law for drunk driving).
In 2011, data from the United States showed that 83,000 car accidents a year due to fatigue driving caused 1,000 deaths and 71,000 injuries per year.[2]
In China, an article published in the Journal of Transportation Engineering in 2010[3] showed that fatigue driving accounted for the largest proportion of all accident causes on highways (speeding ranked second).
(Source: Ref. 3)
This may reflect two problems:
1, everyone does not pay enough attention to fatigue driving. Knowing that he was tired, he still insisted on driving.
The National Sleep Foundation once conducted a survey in which about 60% of motorists admitted that they would continue to drive while dozing off.[4]
2. The supervision of fatigue driving is very difficult. The judgment of drunk driving can be tested by the alcohol concentration of blowing air, and the judgment of fatigue lacks accurate, effective, convenient and easy objective indicators.
When driving, you think you haven't slept, but you're already asleep!
(Source: Pear Video)
Have you ever experienced such a scene?
When I was a child, I watched my mother or grandmother play sweaters, and they would sometimes doze off while hitting sweaters, and they played well.
That's because they're so skilled at making sweaters that they don't need to think, like auto-navigable devices, with the muscles of their hands "running on their own."
There is a type of sleep in medicine called "microsleep", which means a short, involuntary sleep episode that lasts from 1 second to 30 seconds.
During microsleep, you experience a brief loss of consciousness that can't respond to external stimuli, but you can still complete some very skilled movements, an automatic behavior that can be done subconsciously without conscious domination, such as driving a car.
Because the time of "loss of consciousness" is very short, you are not even aware of the instantaneous loss of consciousness and think that you are awake.
If you are in the hospital at this time and have an EEG on your brain, you may find objective evidence that you are sleeping [5].
If this micro-sleep occurs during the driver's fatigue driving, the consequences are unimaginable!
(Source: Network)
Imagine if you were driving at a speed of 60 km/h, during a 3-second microsleep, the car would travel 50 meters. At this time, if there is a curve, obstacle, pedestrian or complex road condition in front of you, there is a high probability that a serious traffic accident will occur.
Risk factors for fatigue driving include:
Not enough sleep time
Poor sleep quality
Circadian rhythm disturbances
Adverse effects of drugs or diseases
The human body has two periods of time when it is most prone to drowsiness: midnight to 7 o'clock and around 15 o'clock. Accidents due to fatigue driving tend to occur in these two time periods, which are most obvious in young people [6].
A study of more than 4,000 car accidents caused by fatigued driving suggested that people aged 16 to 24 (mostly men) were involved in more than half of the car accidents [7].
(Source: giphy)
Young people's brains are more agile than middle-aged and elderly people, but why is there a higher risk of car accidents?
Combining other data analysis, there may be two reasons:
Adolescent brains are in an active development process, usually need to sleep more, and the pressure of work and study, requiring them to get up early, long-term "sleep debt" caused young people often in a state of sleep deprivation.
(Source: Jiangsu SATELLITE TV)
Young people are socially active, especially in the Internet age, social content is rich, and staying up late has become a fashionable lifestyle for young people. This will further aggravate the "sleep debt" owed by young people.
(Source: soogif)
In addition to young people, there is also a group of people who are also at high risk of developing fatigue driving - professional drivers.
There are two main reasons for this:
Sleep deprivation: 14% of long-haul commercial truck drivers sleep less than 5 hours a day on average [8].
The prevalence of sleep apnea syndrome is as high as 28% to 80% in professional drivers [9-11]. If there are risk factors such as alcohol and tobacco addiction, inactivity, obesity, and genetics, the risk of developing sleep apnea syndrome is higher.
You may have heard of some methods for driving drowsiness, such as: opening the window to blow the wind, drinking water and eating, listening to the radio or listening to music, or even punching yourself in the face...
None of this is a good idea!
From the research data, there is no scientific evidence that these methods are useful, and some may be counterproductive.
For example, friends who like to eat sweets should be careful. Sweets raise blood sugar quickly, and drowsiness becomes more intense as elevated blood sugar is metabolized [12].
As for pinching yourself, the means are cruel, and this pain does not awaken drowsiness, and it can be said that the cost performance is very low [11].
The best way to relieve drowsiness is to find a rest area as soon as possible, sleep for a while, and release the pressure of sleep.
It doesn't take long to get a 20-minute sleep to refresh yourself and improve your brain function and behavior [13].
If conditions do not allow it, drinking some coffee strong tea is also a refreshing method. Coffee is a way to improve reaction time, alertness, and sustained attention [13].
Since the onset time of caffeine is 20 minutes, you can drink a cup of coffee before taking a 20-minute nap. This way you can take advantage of the dual wake-up effects of naps and coffee.
Remind all veteran drivers to pay attention to the following 4 points:
1. Regular work and rest, sleep well with quality and quantity.
2. If you can't adjust your sleep, find a professional doctor to help check whether there is a sleep disorder (such as obstructive sleep apnea syndrome or other sleep disorders).
3. If there is already lack of sleep, do not drive, stop in a safe area to rest, and choose other modes of transportation.
4. Try to avoid the most sleepy time periods: evening and 3 pm [6].
In fact, it is futile to fight against the instinctive physiological response of the brain. Not believing in science can cost you your life.
Spring Festival home, choose to drive friends, remember, refuse fatigue driving!
Finally, to borrow a sentence from the traffic police comrades: there are thousands of roads, and safety is the first!
Special Author: Yu Zhouwei
Master of Neurology, Attending Physician of Neurology
Review expert: Wang Chunxue
Chief Physician of the Department of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Psychology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital
bibliography
[1] Powell NB, Schechtman KB, Riley RW, et al. The road to danger: the comparative risks of driving while sleepy. Laryngoscope 2001; 111:887.
[2] National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Traffic safety facts: Drowsy driving. US Department of Transportation, Washington, DC, 2011.
[3] Li Duhou, Liu Qun, Yuan Wei, et al. The relationship between fatigue driving and traffic accident[J].Journal of Transportation Engineering,2010(2):104-109.
[4] National Sleep Foundation. 2005 Sleep in America Poll.
Liu Zhiyong, Zhang Hongmin, Zhao Huiqun, et al. Study on sleep staging algorithm based on EEG signal[J]. Chinese Journal of Biomedical Engineering,2015,34(6):693-700.] DOI:10.3969/j.issn.0258-8021.2015.06.008.
[6] Accid Anal Prev. 1995 Dec;27(6):769-75.
[7] Pack AI, Pack AM, Rodgman E, et al. Characteristics of crashes attributed to the driver having fallen asleep. Accid Anal Prev 1995; 27:769.
[8] Pack AI, Maislin G, Staley B, et al. Impaired performance in commercial drivers: role of sleep apnea and short sleep duration. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2006; 174:446.
[9] Howard ME, Desai AV, Grunstein RR, et al. Sleepiness, sleep-disordered breathing, and accident risk factors in commercial vehicle drivers. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2004; 170:1014.
[10] Stoohs RA, Bingham LA, Itoi A, et al. Sleep and sleep-disordered breathing in commercial long-haul truck drivers. Chest 1995; 107:1275.
[11] Pack AI, Dinges DF, Maislin G. A study of prevalence of sleep apnea among commercial truck drivers. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Publication no. DOT-RT-02-030; US Department of Transportation, Washington, DC 2002.
[12]https://health.clevelandclinic.org/q-whats-the-best-way-to-stay-awake-when-youre-driving/
[13] Spaeth AM, Goel N, Dinges DF. Cumulative neurobehavioral and physiological effects of chronic caffeine intake: individual differences and implications for the use of caffeinated energy products. Nutr Rev 2014; 72 Suppl 1:34.
Editors: Wei Luo, Zhang Xiaoyi, Zhang Jie
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