Ok, that’s a bad pun in the title of this post. Just want to get your attention.
Researchers at the George Institute for Global Health in Australia, writing in the American Medical Association journal JAMA Pediatrics, report the results of a large study about teen drivers crashes and the number of hours of sleep the drivers got on average during the month prior to the crash. They found that those who slept on average less than six hours per night were 21 percent more likely to have been in a crash. They also found that the crash rate was 55 percent higher on weekends.
These results are consistent with studies by the AAA Foundation, which found that one in seven drivers aged 16 to 24 admitted falling asleep at the wheel in the past year, and a NHTSA study of all drivers concluding that one in six crashes with a fatality is caused by a drowsy driver.
These studies suggest several important, mandatory best practices for parents of teen drivers. First, fatigue is the obstacle to safe driving that can hit anyone – even the most careful, well trained, well-meaning teen driver. A high school student who is a straight A student and determined to keep his or her grades up, and will stay up late to finish a project, should not get behind the wheel the next morning. This is a very difficult circumstance for parents to monitor and counteract, but as with all things in teen driving, the consequences of an error in a parent’s judgment are injury or death. Next, these studies show that any teen who has gotten less than six hours of sleep on any given night should be scrutinized carefully by the supervising adult for readiness to drive, and the default parent practice — as inconvenient as it may be — is to err one side of caution and not let the teen drive. Yes, this means the parent must do the driving. Third, the most stunning statistic in these studies is that parents need to be on full alert for fatigue on the weekends. Lastly, needless, to say, high caffeine energy drinks are not the answer.
