Drowsy Driving in Virginia: A Serious Problem

There have been several accidents lately in the Culpeper area where drowsy driving – or driving while tired – was a contributing factor.  Just this week there were two separate accidents involving drowsy drivers who crashed when they nodded off behind the wheel.  Then there is the tragic case of the man who fell asleep while driving and killed four people on Rt. 3 near Stevensburg.

Drowsy driving does not get the kind of public attention that drunken driving gets, nor do police officers patrol for tired drivers, nor are there any tests to determine if drivers are too sleep to drive safely.  However, it is still a big issues – can it can lead to serious injury or death on Virginia roads.

Poll numbers tell a grim story.  Some sixty percent of American adults claim that they have driven while feeling tired at some point in the past year.  Even worse, 37 percent claim to have actually fallen asleep while driving – and 13 percent of those fall asleep while driving at least once a month.  Four percent – that’s about eleven million drivers – have gone as far as to cause a crash because they fell asleep at the wheel.

Drowsy driving crashes cause an estimated $12.5 billion in losses every year.  If the recent local accidents tell us anything, it is that this problem is very real and very serious.  At this point, without public outreach and education, it is only a matter of time before the next drowsy driving crash.