A new extensive sleep study conducted in the UK by the University of Oxford and the Royal Society for Public Health is bringing to light health risks associated with getting good quality sleep. It covers what groups of people are most prone to sleep disorders, how losing sleep connects with cancer, cardiovascular disease, mental health, and how sleep ties to obesity.
One standout finding is that a lack of sleep affects the body the same way drinking alcohol does. Research found that after 17 hours without sleep, our alertness is similar to the effects of a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%, which according to U.S. law is considered "impaired" on the legally drunk scale. After 24 hours without sleeping, the body is in the same state it'd be in at a BAC of 0.1%–well beyond the 0.08% BAC that identifies someone as legally drunk.
Basically, driving after sleeping poorly is the same as driving after downing a couple of beers. There are too many accidents that could have been avoided if truck drivers weren’t sleep deprived.
How Dangerous Is Driving While Tired?
Studies have shown that drowsy driving can be just as or more dangerous than drunk driving, because it creates many of the same symptoms, including problems with decision making, difficulty focusing on your surroundings, and a slowed reaction time.
Furthermore, “sleep debt” is real. Getting just 6 hours of sleep for a week straight, rather than 8 hours, can leave a person as impaired as if they’d pulled an all-nighter. Tiredness also impairs judgment, so when you’re too tired to drive, you may not recognize how tired you actually are.
Unfortunately, drowsy truck drivers can cause far more serious accidents than people in passenger vehicles, since the average car may weigh somewhere around 4,000 lbs., but a fully loaded tractor-trailer can weigh 80,000 lbs.
Stats Around Drowsing Driving for Truckers
There are not a lot of studies around drowsy driving for truck drivers in particular, because it is hard to measure tiredness for many reasons.
- There is no test to determine how sleep impaired someone is like there is for drugs or alcohol.
- Drivers may not realize how tired they are because they are impaired by lack of sleep.
- Drivers may not realize they are falling asleep if the periods of sleep are short enough (only a few seconds at a time).
- Drivers could be lying about their tiredness before or after crashes to protect their jobs.
However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that drowsy driving caused about 91,000 crashes in the U.S. overall in 2017. According to a National Sleep Foundation study, up to one-third of drivers surveyed admitted to falling asleep while driving.
One study found that when people who got plenty of rest were asked to perform a continuous tracking activity, such as driving, for 50 minutes straight, 70% of them experienced “microsleep” episodes (falling asleep for 0.5-15 seconds). Microsleep is much more likely when a driver is tired, and makes it significantly harder for a driver to react in time to avoid a crash.
What data is available suggests drowsy driving is in fact one of the top causes of big truck accidents. Studies suggest that drowsy drivers may cause up to 40% of big truck crashes. Two-thirds of truck drivers admit to driving while tired on at least half of the trips they make, and 13% admitted to falling asleep while driving.
According to a Harvard study, truck drivers—many of whom drive overnight—who suffer sleep apnea and don’t get proper treatment have a 400% increased risk of crashing.
Can a new mattress really help?
The best thing you can do to driver alert is invest in a comfortable mattress for your truck. Research shows that a medium-firm mattress can improve sleep quality by 55% and help reduce chronic back pain. The Rested Hauler truck mattress fits this description perfectly. Pocketed coils and Serene memory foam contour to your hips and shoulders for support that is custom for your unique shape and size. These two ingredients also allow for maximum airflow within your mattress to keep you cool and dry. This 12” tall mattress is built to the same standard as a premium residential hybrid mattress that can cost several thousand dollars. It ships via UPS compressed in a 45”x15”x15” box, which makes it easy to setup inside of your truck bunk area. The Rested Hauler truck mattress is proudly built in the USA.
Get better Z’s by taking advantage of Rested Hauler’s first time customer discount of $50 by using coupon code BIGRIGSLEEP at checkout.