Drowsiness causes 7 per cent of fatal accidents says DGT

A conference held by the DGT (Director General of Traffic) on Thursday 6 July revealed that drowsiness caused an annual average of 75 deaths and 250 serious injuries over the last decade.

This was the information provided by the General Director of Traffic, Pere Navarro, during the drowsiness and driving conference, held at the DGT headquarters. His objective was to bring together experts from different sectors to discuss tiredness and how this factor has a direct impact on road accidents.

To commence the conference, Navarro highlighted that 42 per cent of fatal accidents are at junctions or roundabouts, and that 38 per cent were due to distraction. “This is a disaster drawer where we include the mobile, in which we have focused a lot in recent years, but also sleepiness and fatigue, which are the great forgotten to which perhaps we have not paid enough attention. For this reason, this day serves to open the debate and begin to work on a topic that has a long history”, he said.

Álvaro Gómez, director of the DGT road safety observatory, pointed out that some accidents in which drowsiness is present involve exits, at dawn, low visibility or with no passengers. The general chief of operations of the traffic group of the Guardia Civil, Tomás García Gazapo, pointed out the importance of stopping at the slightest sign of sleepiness. “It is not recognised by society that sleep is a risk of road accidents and it is something that we have to change.”

Antoni Esteve, director of the AdSalutem Sleep Institute, made an approximation of the sleep problem in Spain, where he considered sleep deprivation as a generalised epidemic, providing the data that 30 per cent of the Spanish population suffers some type of sleep disorder, 45 per cent sleep less than the minimum 7 hours of sleep and Spaniards sleep 10 per cent less than the rest of Europe.

According to the expert, sleep deprivation has important consequences in life, such as the weakening of the immune system, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, neuro-degenerative diseases, fatigue and mental health problems and, of course, an increased risk of road accidents, which can be four times the risk if the driver has slept between four and five hours, or multiplied by 11 in the case of sleeping less than four hours.

Carlos Egea, head of the respiratory service and the sleep unit of the OSI in Araba de Vitoria, highlighted the effect of sleep and alcohol on the probability of suffering a road accident. “Driving with lack of sleep or under the influence of alcohol multiplies by five the chances of suffering a traffic accident, but it can multiply by 30 when both factors concur. Therefore we are facing a scenario of lack of social awareness and prevention of the risks involved in driving while drowsy, even more so when half of the drivers affirmed in a study carried out by Linea Directa said that they force themselves to continue driving despite suffering drowsiness and 31 per cent admit that they have had microsleeps”, he said.

Ramón Gil, President of the CEDOA Medio Laboral Group also referred to professional drivers in his speech. He stated that last year 132 people died in road accidents whilst commuting to work, and another 104 died during the working day, a true catastrophe that seems difficult to stop. He stated that 80 per cent of professional drivers are self-employed, many of them with jobs in which the salary is in relation to the kilometres travelled or deliveries made.

Eduardo Mayoral, Alsa’s security director, highlighted the main measures that have been implemented in his company to prevent fatigue and drowsiness among its more than 6,000 drivers and stated Alsa are already working with technologies based on artificial intelligence to detect it. “The erratic behavior of those who fall asleep or suffer from fatigue is what worries us the most, hence why we adopt all the measures at our disposal to minimise these situations”.

The experts concluded that sleep problems are, after alcohol, the main cause of traffic accidents.