Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
Asleep at the Wheel: Driving Fatigue Accidents (Part A)
“Drowsy driving” is a nice term for a deadly state of mind when a sleepy person is behind the wheel of a car on the road. Perhaps that is why driver fatigue accidents so often are incorrectly classified, unreported and ultimately, not addressed in the courts.
Innocent victims who sustain life-changing injuries or lose their lives in fatigued driver car accidents need help in proving the real cause of such violations. Because the condition is difficult to detect after the fact, getting the compensation victims deserve is a challenge for personal injury attorneys. When successful, they are able to recover compensation for injuries, lost wages, and other costs.
Are Driving Fatigue Accident Statistics Accurate?
Public attention focuses on the most pressing safety concerns, so accurate counts of incidents involving driver fatigue are important. Since detection is difficult and denial by offenders is common, a lower incidence of correct reporting makes compiling these statistics even more urgent. Given these variables alone, it is unlikely that we know the totality of the problem.
In an informal 2005 poll by the National Sleep Foundation, more than half of the drivers surveyed said they have driven while over-fatigued at least once a year. Over one-third of the respondents admitted to falling asleep at the wheel.
In other federal studies, fatigued drivers who were tested were unable to evaluate their own conditions. This may be partially due to the involuntary nature of sleep and partially due to a stubborn unwillingness to admit the problem. Whatever the reason, poor reporting further skews the public’s perception of who is responsible for these crashes and how prevalent driver fatigue accidents have become.
Given that laws in certain states have become more severe for fatigued drivers who injure or kill others, the courts are finally beginning to acknowledge and understand the tragic impact of these highly preventable accidents.
The last count by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration was ten years ago. It attributes a mere 100,000 collisions to driving while fatigued, while a total of 1 million motor vehicle accidents are labeled operator inattention cases. The symptoms of drowsiness and inattention are very similar. So these numbers may not tell all about the responsibility of driver fatigue in injurious or fatal car accidents.
Go to Asleep at the Wheel: Driving Fatigue Accidents (Part B) >>
