Most of us can honestly admit that we have experienced a level of drowsiness so great that we would be endangering the live’s of others by stepping behind the wheel of a vehicle. Could driving while tired be just as dangerous as driving while intoxicated? How can one tell if they are past the point of exhaustion that deems it irresponsible to drive? Many people put time into researching these questions which have the potential to influence the lives of the entire population. You may be surprised to hear that one influential researcher of this problem is not even old enough to be eligible for a drivers license of her own.
14 year old Katharine Wu was a finalist in “the 2014 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge as a result of her idea for a “device designed to detect and prevent drowsy driving” entitled “the driver’s companion”. This is her video submission to the competition in which she describes how her creation works.
The National Conference of State Legislatures has an entire section about current laws against driving drowsy. Many states enacted driving drowsy awareness days/weeks/months in order to spread awareness on the dangerous effects the choice can have. In Pennsylvania, April is dedicated to this cause. In some states, accidents involving a fatigued driver, classified as 24 hours without sleep, can constitute punishment for negligent homicide. US News and World Report released a video which acknowledges the similarities between driving drunk and driving drowsy.
The official Drowsy Driving website explains that in a 2005 National Sleep Foundation Poll, 60% of adult driver’s admitted to driving drowsy within the previous year. Even more worrisome then that statistic is that 37% of them said that they had actually fallen asleep at the wheel. People like Katharine Wu are working to lower that statistic.
The “driver’s companion” tracks EEG waves and eye blinks to determine a driver’s drowsiness level while they wear a “mind wave mobile headset”. The data is sent to a credit card sized device that sits on the vehicle’s dashboard. If the level’s seem to drowsy, auditory and visual signals are sent in order to make the driver more alert.
Photo Retrieved from: http://www.usnews.com/dims4/USNEWS/5447f4d/2147483647/resize/652x%3E/quality/85/?url=%2Fcmsmedia%2Ffb%2Fc4%2Ff93e2c754181ba744ffa75f45c68%2F20140925-184235-dsc-1703-crop.jpg
This is a photo of Wu’s “Driver’s Companion”
Why is driving drowsy so dangerous? The NCSDR/NHTSA Expert Panel on Driver Fatigue and Sleepiness website has an immense amount of answers and information on this topic. In studies conducted by this organization, relevant impairments and the reasons why it is dangerous to drive while exhausted are slower reaction time, reduced vigilance, and deficits in information processing. These were defined through performing in-lab and in-vehicle studies.
The figure below shows that “Performance slows with sleep deprivation. A summary of data (Kribbs, Dinges, 1994) on reaction to an event marker presented to a subject every 4 seconds or so over a 10-minute period. As reaction time is longer, the inverse value is reduced, indicating a slowing of the perception/reaction response. The response to an event marker slows more across time in the sleep-deprived (very sleepy) subject than in a subject who has had normal amounts of sleep”.
To conclude, the danger’s of driving while exhausted are extremely evident. Although Katharine Wu had a good start, her device is still being tested and researched. A large dilemma the invention faces is that people can not be forced to wear it. A large majority of adults drive and a large majority of adults do not get the recommended amount of sleep per night. Therefore, everytime we step into our cars we are trusting that ourselves as well as those around us are driving responsibly.
I completely agree that driving while drowsy is not only dangerous, but can also be deadly to the driver, other citizens on the road, or even both. There have been studies done by the Mythbusters that imply that a tired person behind the wheel of a vehicle is more risky than an intoxicated person driving home. http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/about-this-show/tired-vs-drunk-driving/ Although both are very selfish on the driver’s part and can change the lives of anyone involved within a few careless moments, only drunk driving is illegal. There should be something done about this phenomenon considering 1/6 accidents are a result of someone falling asleep while driving. Chewing gum, blasting the music, and putting all windows down does not always help, so the “driver’s companion” would save a lot of lives.
I understand that driving drowsy is becoming more, or just as much, of a problem as drinking and driving. I found the evidence in your blog that it is becoming such a problem very interesting. With this said, I am curious about how many adults were included in the survey that you mentioned, and out of those adults if it was randomized or not.