This year, the first day of Spring is also the first day of a brand new national campaign against drowsy driving.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has rolled out a new campaign featuring: public service announcements, education campaigns, tougher laws, and signs on the road to combat the increasing number of fatigued drivers on the roads.
According to sleep specialist, Dr. Kingman Strohl at the University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, "drowsy driving impairs your reaction time, impairs your ability to think of two things at once, and it impairs your memory of where you're going."
The NHTSA reports, this combination caused 72,000 police-reported crashes, resulting in 41,000 injuries and 800 deaths in 2015. Also stating, drowsy driving kills between 5,000-8,000 people every year - twice as many as distracted driving.
Dr. Strohl says some ways to avoid sleep-deprived driving are: pull over and take a nap if you start feeling tired, try and get between 7-8 hours of sleep a night, and avoid driving between the hours of 2-6 p.m. and Midnight-4 a.m, when you are most likely to feel tired.
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