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NTSB worried daylight saving time could increase fatigued driving
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is warning that fatigued driving could be increased by daylight saving time.
Drivers who are already tired will lose an hour of potential sleep when clocks go forward next week, NTSB member Mark Rosekind said.
“Next week, America prepares to turn its clocks ahead and collectively as a nation we each lose an hour of sleep. In one night, this will generate a 300 million-hour national sleep debt and in the few days it takes our bodies to adjust, our nation will accumulate over a billion hours of lost sleep,” Rosekind wrote in a blog post on the NTSB website.“In transportation, this lost sleep kills, injures and costs billions of dollars."
“The hour we lose when clocks are set forward every spring offers our already sleep-deprived country a glimpse into the dangers of operating vehicles while fatigued,” he wrote. “Perhaps the most basic requirement for safely operating any vehicle is to be awake, and though necessary, just being awake is not sufficient. Safe travel requires every vehicle operator to have obtained optimal sleep and be wide-awake and maximally alert, every time.”
Rosekind said the NTSB was not just concerned about driver fatigue during daylight saving time.
“The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has long been interested in fatigue and has identified it as a probable cause or contributing factor in accidents across all modes of transportation that have resulted in many lost lives and injuries,” he wrote.
“The NTSB has issued over 200 safety recommendations focused on fatigue across all transportation modes," Rosekind continued. "These safety recommendations have addressed diverse areas such as hours of service regulations, scheduling policies, education and training, diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders, research, and vehicle technologies.”
Rosekind said it would take a “societal wake up call" for driver fatigue to be properly addressed.
“Airplanes, buses, trains, trucks, and ships are complex machines that require the full attention of the operator, maintenance personnel, and other individuals performing safety-critical functions, and our lives depend on it,” Rosekind wrote. “The sad fact is that for all the information we have on the perils of fatigue, American society still characterizes pushing the sleep envelope as ‘hardworking,’ ‘results-oriented,’ and ‘dedicated’ but when it comes to operating any kind of vehicle – fatigue can be deadly.”
