Connecticut residents like you understand that you must share the road with many other drivers. This includes everyone from the smallest motorcycles to the largest semi truck. Everyone must cooperate to keep the roads safe.
Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Some people may create larger dangers on the road than others, too. For example, drowsy truckers often create big risks for everyone else on the road.
How big of an issue is drowsy driving in trucking?
The Sleep Foundation examines the impact of drowsiness on truckers. In a congressionally mandated study, experts examined 80 truckers across the United States and Canada. From their studies, they found that truckers averaged less than 5 hours of sleep a night. This is far below the number that doctors suggest. Not only that, but they estimated that drowsiness was behind half (or more) of all fatalities of truck drivers on the road.
Why are drowsy truckers so dangerous?
The big dangers happen when you take the size of their vehicle into consideration. The same study that proved drowsiness as a fatality for truckers claimed that it was even worse for other drivers on the road. Estimates guessed that 3 to 4 other drivers lost their lives for every single trucker. This is because semi trucks often weigh multiple tons and stretch the span of several vans on a highway. If one crashes, they have the potential to take out every other lane of traffic going in their direction. The damage is even greater if they cross the meridian barrier and careen into oncoming traffic.
This is why drowsy driving in the trucking industry is such a big concern across the board. This drowsiness does not just jeopardize the trucker. It jeopardizes everyone sharing road space with the trucker.
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