A new study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety may keep
you up at night — and that could be a good thing. According to
the report, 41% of drivers admit to having fallen asleep at the
wheel, and drowsy driving accounts for about 17% of all crashes,
and 2% of vehicular fatalities. Consumer Reports took at look a
the eye-opening study: The study found that 41 percent admit to
falling asleep or nodding off at some point during their driving
experience, based on a telephone survey of 2,000 U.S. residents.
One in 10 said they did so in the past year and 27 percent of
those surveyed said they were so tired behind the wheel that
they had a hard time keeping their eyes open. Drowsy driving was
attributed to 730 deaths in 2009–about 2 percent of all
vehicular fatalities, but an analysis of the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) crash data reveals that
one in six or 16 percent of deadly crashes involve a driver who
is sleepy and one in eight result in hospitalization. These
statistics are highe