In 1985, the singer Stevie Wonder starred in a DGT campaign to raise awareness about the danger of driving a vehicle after having ingested alcohol. The motto If you drink, don’t drive quickly became popular, although the problem is still very present today (last year 51.9% of drivers killed in traffic accidents tested positive for alcohol, drugs or psychotropic drugs). Well, almost 40 years later, the organization headed by Pere Navarro has adapted the message to warn of the danger of drowsiness at the wheel. Thus, this summer, the information panels on the roads will show the warning If you are sleepy, do not drive. And it is that experts have directly linked sleepiness with road accidents.
“After alcohol consumption, sleep is possibly the factor that most affects traffic accidents, which changes road safety policy,” Navarro pointed out during his participation in the Conference on Drowsiness and accidents.
42% of accidents in Spain are caused by vehicles leaving the road and not in all cases is alcohol and drug use or mobile phone use present, so “sleep could be behind them”. Likewise, he has pointed out that it could also be a factor involved in distractions, which account for 38% of claims: “we have concentrated on our mobile phones and perhaps we have forgotten to sleep”.
The head of the DGT indicated that, according to the National Observatory for Road Safety, every year 75 people die and another 250 are seriously injured due to sleep at the wheel. In addition, the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard points out that fatigue is behind 7% of fatal road accidents.
Navarro commented that drowsiness and driving is “a novel” and “emerging” issue that “affects health” and “undoubtedly road safety.”
As explained by Dr. Antoni Esteve, director of the AdSalutem Sleep Institute, you should sleep 7 to 8 hours; resting between 6 and 7 hours (the Spanish average) doubles the risk of having an accident. In addition, he has warned that there is a high percentage of citizens who sleep less than 6 hours, which is considered “high pathological risk.”
“If we sleep between 10 and 15% less than what we are entitled to, we are reducing our brain’s capacity to have a healthy and long life and to be able to respond to any challenge or situation during the day that requires reflexes,” said Esteve. .
According to a survey by the Mapfre Foundation, 55% of drivers continue driving despite being drowsy, which means, in the words of Dr. Carlos Egea, Head of the Respiratory Service and the Sleep Unit of the OSI Araba de Vitoria , who continue behind the wheel even though their brain is warning them.
Egea has highlighted the existence of a health problem related to rest that has a direct impact on driving. This is sleep apnea, which multiplies by 10 the chances of having an accident, according to this doctor.
Fatigue or sleep appears as a concurrent factor in 11% of fatal accidents in Spain in 2022, with a “slight increase” compared to the previous year, although international studies indicate between 15 and 20%, as indicated Álvaro Gómez, from the DGT Road Safety Observatory.
The type of accident for this reason responds to a road departure or collision with a stationary vehicle or fixed obstacle, on high-capacity roads, at dawn, on a section with good visibility and, normally, without passengers.
