In Northern Ireland (NI) whilst a low percentage of young people actually drive, their involvement in road traffic accidents and in particular, sleep-related accidents is substantial. This paper investigates the tendency of young drivers to fall asleep at the wheel and the many reasons causing their lack of sleep. Young people should be fit, healthy and able to cope with life, but nowadays with emphasis put on socializing, fast/convenience food and the increasing car culture, many are overweight and spend less time sleeping adequately. Driving standards for most age ranges whilst lacking of much needed sleep deteriorated notably. This project found, however, that the effect of driving with age group 17-24 years old and indeed 25-34 years old deteriorated more significantly than any other age range. This age group (17-24) was therefore highlighted as a high-risk group. Surveys from this age group showed that more males than females tended to be drowsy at inappropriate times. Young male car drivers total 6.9% of all NI car drivers, but are attributable for 27.4% of all fatal and serious injury accidents. Young female car drivers form 5.5% of all NI car drivers and account for 6.7% of injurious accidents. Awareness is a more successful key to reduce these types of accidents. Detection is very difficult for police officers as there are no mechanisms available to them for identifying sleep deprivation. Educating drivers through a range of mediums would be more beneficial than many in-car technology systems (as these often detect sleepiness when it is too late and the driver does not need to be asleep to be involved in a fatigue-related accident). For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
Samenvatting