In 1996, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) embarked on a congressionally mandated effort to develop educational countermeasures to the effects of fatigue, sleep disorders, and inattention on highway safety. In collaboration with National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR), the program established three main components: a workplace education program for shift workers to reduce the incidence of drowsy driving, a school-based program for high schools to increase students' awareness of the dangers of drowsy driving, and an in-vehicle data-collection effort to obtain driver and vehicle performance measures of real-life inattention events. The Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. Senate, in Senate Report 104-325 on the Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 1997, directed NHTSA to report to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees describing the collaborative efforts and funding activities between NHTSA and the NCSDR. In addition to providing the requested information, this report provides an overview of and status report on the agencies' development, implementation, and evaluation activities. The report is presented in the following sections: Legislative History; Program Overview; Detailed Project Descriptions; and Conclusions. (Author/publisher)
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