In a press conference today, March 6, at the Massachusetts State House, the commonwealth’s Special Commission on Drowsy Driving, led by Senator Richard Moore and including HMS researcher Charles Czeisler, issued a report titled “Asleep at the Wheel.” In an effort to reduce auto injuries and deaths resulting from sleep deprivation, the report recommends changes in education, enforcement, penalties for drowsy driving, and highway safeguards. Bills to advance these priorities have been filed.
“The legislation introduced by the commission is a critical step toward public recognition of sleep-deprived driving as a major medical and public health issue,” said Czeisler, the Baldino professor of sleep medicine at HMS and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and director of the HMS Division of Sleep Medicine.
The report cites data from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and research supported by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, which estimate that drowsy driving is responsible for 20 percent of all motor vehicle crashes and serious injuries. Sleep deprivation and sleep disorders are therefore responsible for an estimated 1 million accidents, 500,000 injuries and 8,000 deaths in the United States each year.
The legislation advocated by the commission aims at educating new and current drivers about the hazards of drowsy driving, particularly those most susceptible to driving while drowsy: men aged 16 to 29, drivers with untreated sleep disorders, night-shift workers, commercial drivers, and persons working long hours, such as medical residents.
The bills, in fact, specifically target the protection of physicians in training. Extending parameters recommended by the IOM and endorsed by the Sleep Research Society and the National Sleep Foundation, the laws would create an advisory council charged with research and recommendations toward establishing new rules for standard resident physician work hour limits based on the best available evidence. Another part of the legislation would require academic healthcare centers and hospitals to provide transportation to medical students and residents too fatigued to drive themselves home safely.
The legislation would also make drowsy driving and vehicular homicide tied to drowsiness more serious offenses, and it would expand safety measures on highways such as rumble strips, rest stops, commercial parking facilities, and rest area security to encourage alert driving.
