Driver Fatigue
We’re getting closer and closer to the Fourth of July, the Labor Day and Memorial Day. The news, however, doesn’t agree with the word “fun” since it’s always delivered with death tolls, and only about highway accidents. One of the reasons that the accident rates increase during the three day weekends and holidays is the heavy traffic that funnels on the highways. Another reason is the driver fatigue caused by long hours of driving, sleep debt, and holiday demands.
Proper rest is the only solution to these driving dangers; however it seems like human nature to always push the boundaries and prove we can endure more, even if it means risking our lives. The problem is expected to grow even more, due to the fact that this is America’s 24 hours, work hard, play hard culture. Science is yet to discover a foolproof method for safety for asleep-at-the-wheel driving, but some have come up with the idea of putting an alarm system, triggered by the driver’s fatigue levels. To keep learning about online education be sure to check out Cert 4 in OHS.
The fact still remains that driver fatigue is one of the gravest threats to the safety on the roads. The yearly estimate from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was counts up to one hundred thousand crashes, seventy one thousand injuries and one thousand five hundred fatalities. In addition to human suffering, these crashes are estimated to rack up about $12.5 billion in costs related to diminished productivity and property loss. Others consider these estimates to be conservative, asserting that driver fatigue plays a significant role in the nearly 1,000,000 annual crashes that are generally attributed to driver inattention.
It’s fairly obvious that people shouldn’t be driving when their eyes are closed, but our research suggests that fatigued drivers become increasingly susceptible to accidents long before they actually fall asleep at the wheel, notes a professor of psychology at Washington University in St.Louis, MO and one of the world’s leading authorities on eye blinks and driver fatigue. For more than one decade, this expert and others have tried to find the key behind the issue. They have considered the possibilities and studied the onset of sleep for years. Most of their research efforts were concentrated on the trucking industry, since the operators are usually at the greatest risks. When the devices are made available for passenger cars, he does believe that the price for each unit will soon drop. For now, one gadget costs up to several thousands of dollars.
What sort of driver’s fatigue signs will these gadgets be able to recognize? The gadgets will detect predictors such as long blinks and eye closure intervals, as these are the perfect indicators for telling the behavioral patterns of a tired and sleep driver. There is a chance that when a driver lapses to sleep, he will lose all alertness completely, so the device should detect the late stage of sleep as well. At Certificate 4 in OHS you’ll find more expert resources on online education.
Immediate corrective action is the key, which means the devices will have to detect the early symptoms of fatigue to be useful. The research’s main objective is to determine the eye motion patterns of sleepy drivers. The sudden and short mental lapses hint on transitioning to sleep. Ultimately, if these mental lapses can be predicted, the gadgets may prove much more useful in giving advance warning.
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