One study found that driving after four to five hours of sleep is just as dangerous as drunk driving. The results were published in the journal The Nature and Science of Sleep.
The study’s authors noted that the number of accidents caused by alcohol consumption has decreased significantly over the past 20 years. However, during the same period, no significant progress was made in reducing the number of accidents caused by fatigue. Fatigue is now the cause of accidents in 20% of cases.
Researchers evaluated data from 61 studies. It turned out that getting less than 4-5 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours doubled the risk of traffic accidents. This is the same accident risk when drivers have a BAC of 0.05%. In most cases, this number is used to determine if a person can drive.
Some studies have shown that if a driver gets less than four hours of sleep the night before, he may be 15 times more likely to have an accident than if he gets a good night’s sleep.
Drawing on their experience in dealing with drunk drivers, the scientists believe the results will help develop measures to reduce the risk of fatigue-related accidents.