Too Many Teens Are Driving Drowsy

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Teens on the verge of falling asleep behind the wheel is a common threat to public safety on U.S. roadways, a new study reports.

About 1 in 6 teenage drivers say they’ve driven while drowsy, according to a National Sleep Foundation study presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Houston. The research was also published in a special supplement of the May issue of the journal Sleep.

That finding means that about 1.7 million teenage drivers have driven while sleepy, and more than 400,000 teens drive drowsy at least once a week, researchers estimated.

“This is a troubling rate, especially given that teens are new drivers with relatively low opportunity to have engaged in drowsy driving when compared to the lifetime of driving opportunities in adults,” said principal investigator Joseph Dzierzewski, vice president of research and scientific affairs at the National Sleep Foundation.

Teens know it’s not safe — about 95% said drowsy driving is extremely or very risky, poll results show.

However, they listed drowsy driving as having the lowest risk of death or serious harm when compared to drunk, drugged or distracted driving, researchers found.

The survey involved 1,124 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17, researchers said.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/first-aid-and-emergencies/too-many-teens-are-driving-drowsy