Sleep problems could be present in 7% of fatal traffic accidents in 2021, which means that 77 people died for this reason. Taking into account the data of the last decade, on average each year, 75 people died and another 250 were seriously injured. This has been the information provided by the General Director of Traffic, Pere Navarroduring the Drowsiness and Driving conference, the objective of which was to bring together experts from different sectors to discuss drowsiness in our country and how this factor has a direct impact on road accidents.
Navarro has highlighted that 42% of fatal accidents are exits from the road and that 38% of the deceased were due to distraction “a disaster drawer where we include the mobile, on which we have focused a lot in recent years, but also drowsiness and fatigue, which are the great forgotten to which perhaps we have not paid enough attention«.
Alvaro Gomez, director of the DGT Road Safety Observatory, has pointed out that the type of accident in which drowsiness is present is a road exit, on highways at dawn, without leaving traces, with visibility, without passengers and without other concurrent factors. For his part, the General Chief of Operations of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard, Tomas Garcia Gazapo, has pointed out the importance of stopping at the slightest symptom of sleep. “It is not internalized by society that sleep is a risk of road accidents and it is something that we have to change.”
Antony Estevedirector of the AdSalutem Sleep Institute, has made an approximation of the sleep problem in Spain, coming to consider sleep deprivation as a generalized epidemic, if the following data is taken into account: 30% of the Spanish population suffers from some type of of sleep disorders, 45% sleep less than the minimum 7 hours of sleep and we Spaniards are the ones who sleep 10% less than the rest of Europe.
According to the expert, this sleep deprivation has important consequences in life, such as the weakening of the immune system, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, fatigue and mental health problems and, of course, an increased risk of road accidents, which can be of four times more in case the driver has slept between 4 and 5 hours or multiply by eleven in the case of sleeping less than 4 hours.
for his part Carlos Aegea, head of the Respiratory Service and the Sleep Unit of the OSI of Araba de Vitoria, has highlighted the effect of sleep and alcohol on the probability of suffering a road accident. “Driving with lack of sleep or under the influence of alcohol multiplies by 5 the chances of suffering a traffic accident, but it can multiply by 30 when both factors concur,” he adds.
Therefore, “we are facing a scenario of lack of social awareness and prevention of the risks involved in driving while drowsy, even more so when half of the drivers affirm in a study carried out by Línea Directa that they force themselves and continue driving despite suffering drowsiness and 31% admit that they have had micro-dreams”, he concludes.
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