With over 1,550 fatalities and 40,000 nonfatal injuries occurring annually in the United States alone as a result of drowsy driving, sleep loss has become a public health problem.[7][8] When experiencing microsleeps while driving an automobile, from the perspective of the driver, they are driving a car, and then suddenly realize that several seconds have passed by unnoticed. It is not obvious to the driver that they were asleep during those missing seconds, although this is in fact what happened.