Sleepy Teenagers Get In More Car Accidents
Monday, February 15, 2010 - 11:42
in Health & Medicine
A surprising new study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine reveals that sleepiness at the wheel and poor sleep quality significantly increase the risk of motor vehicle accidents for teenage drivers. Results indicate that adolescent drivers were twice as likely to have had a crash if they experienced sleepiness while driving (adjusted odds ratio = 2.1) or reported having bad sleep (OR = 1.9). Eighty of the 339 students had already crashed at least once, and 15 percent of them considered sleepiness to have been the main cause of the crash. Fifty-six percent of students who had at least one previous crash reported driving while sleepy, compared with 35 percent of subjects who had not been in a crash. read more