Lack of Sleep Disrupts Teen Driving

A new study shows that poor sleep quality and being sleepy while driving significantly increases adolescents' risk of motor vehicle accidents. Researchers found adolescent drivers were twice as likely to have had a crash if they experienced sleepiness while driving or reported having bad sleep. Eighty of the 339 students that were involved in this study had already crashed at least once and fifteen percent of them considered sleepiness to have been the main cause of the crash. Fifty-six percent of the students who had at least one previous crash reported driving while sleepy, compared with thirty-five percent of subjects who had not been in a crash. The students were between the ages of 18 and 21 and fifty-right percent of them were male. Questions concerned lifestyle habits, nocturnal sleep habits, symptoms suggesting sleep disorders, and a subjective report of daytime sleepiness. Driving habits and sleepiness at the wheel were evaluated by questions assessing the frequency and timing of car use and accidents, the perceived causes of vehicle crashes and the respondents' coping methods for dealing with sleepiness while driving. Results show students suffered from chronic sleep deprivation. Although they reported that their sleep need was a mean of 9.2 hours per night, the students reported sleeping for an average of only 7.3 hours on weeknights. Only six percent of students slept nine hours or more on weeknights, and fifty-eight percent tried to catch up by sleeping nine hours or more on the weekends. Sleep problems were commonly reported by the students. Forty-five percent woke up at least once during the night with trouble falling asleep again, forty percent complained of difficulties in the morning awakening and nineteen percent reported bad sleep. The combination of chronic sleep loss and poor sleep quality had a negative effect on their alertness, as sixty-four percent of participants complained of excessive daytime sleepiness. This study emphasizes the need for education programs that target adolescents with information about improving sleep habits, the importance of sleep and the dangers of sleep deprivation.