Thousands of people are injured in New Jersey and around the country every year because of drowsy driving. In order to bring about awareness to this issue, Drowsy Driving Prevention Week was created. To help drivers get ready for this informative week, here’s more information about drowsy driving and how they can prevent it.
The causes and ramifications of it
One of the most common causes of drowsy driving is lack of sleep. However, taking certain medications can cause an individual to be too drowsy to drive as well. Around 71,000 drowsy driving accidents are reported by law enforcement every year. However, studies have found that there are over 300,000 motor vehicle accidents yearly that occur because a driver is drowsy. Unfortunately, many of these accidents aren’t reported to the police. Because of this, it’s difficult to determine exactly how many accidents are caused by drowsy drivers every single year.
Signs that an individual is too tired to drive
It’s not that uncommon for some drivers to not be sure whether or not they should drive if they haven’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before or are taking certain medications. If they are yawning and having difficulty keeping their eyes open, they shouldn’t drive. For those individuals that do decide to drive even though they suspect that they are drowsy, they may notice that they have a difficult time trying to maintain their speed, they miss turns or drift into the other lane. After they have noticed that any of these things have occurred, they do need to pull over immediately in order to avoid getting into an accident.
Drowsy driving makes our roadways unsafe and can affect all of us. In order to get ready for Drowsy Driving Prevention Week, drivers should make it a point to never drive when they are drowsy.
