and costly Government advertising campaigns in history, most people ow
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acknowledge that drinking alcohol and iving makes for a lethal cocktail.
But few drivers, professionals included, ppreciate the devastating impact that lack of leep, or a sleep disorder, can have on their ibility to control a vehicle.
Research by scientists at Loughborough niversity suggests as many as one in four .atal read accidents are now caused by drivers ailing asleep at the wheel, which makes sleep bigger danger on the road than excess alc&. ol consumption.
With many truck drivers working an average of 60 hours a week, including non-driving Lime, fatigue is almost certainly a factor. But there are other pressures also on the time allocated to sleep.
It is now well known that one of the key attributes to succeed as prime minister is an ability to get by on no more than five hours' sleep a night—Mrs Thatcher is said to have whittled this down to three. Few other professional people would claim to function properly on this amount of sleep. But modern society places less importance on sleep and more emphasis on greater flexibility in working and social lives.
Society
Sharon Borrow, sleep scientist at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in London, says: "Nowadays many people work after daylight hours and society expects services to go on being provided through the night. Sleep is being eroded because it is regarded as expendable, which it isn't."
Specialists fear this erosion of sleep is leading to an increase in poor judgement by professionals such as drivers. It also helps to explains why the number of cases of sleep disorders like insomnia seem to be rising.
According to the British Sleep Society nearly one-in-three of the adult population is affected by insomnia. But 95% of those who are affected never seek medical help.
Dr Adrian Williams, consultant chest physician at the Sleep Laborator.). at St Thomas's I liplatal in London, says: "The most common sleep. If this happens, people need to improve sleep hygiene. This means making things as good as they can be in order to aid sleep."
Insomnia comes in three basic forms. If someone has been unable to sleep, or has slept poorly, for a few nights, it is most likely they have transient insomnia.
Two or three weeks of poor sleep would be classed as short-term insomnia; its chronic form it is characterised by poor sleep lasting three weeks or longer.
The Department of Transport has recognised the problem. It is working closely with Loughborough University's Sleep Laboratory to establish what the real risks are in the relationship between driver sleepiness and accidents. As part of this work it will be studying the dangers for WV drivers.
Already the research has revealed that nearly 30% of professional and company car drivers admit to having fallen asleep at the wheel, and those prone to daytime sleepiness are up to three times more likely to have an accident.
However there may be other reasons why daytime sleepiness is a problem for drivers. Some doctors believe there is a hidden epidemic of a clinical condition allied sleep apnoea, which may not just be affecting drivers' performance but also exposing them to cardiovascular disease and even sudden death.
Sleep apnoea is a disorder of breathing during sleep which most commonly affects men aged between 30 and 60. It occurs when the throat is repeatedly sucked closed during the night. Although it is normal for throat muscles to relax in sleep, in people whose throat is narrower than average the opening closes over. This causes the sufferer to struggle for breath and wake briefly. But the problem recurs once they go back to sleep, and in severe cases they can wake hundreds of times each night—and feel exhausted the next day.
Loud snoring is the most common symptom, punctuated by pauses of up to 60 seconds. Sufferers wake tmrefreshed, often with headaches.
Doctors estimate that one-in-50 of the adult population is affected by sleep apnoea, yet 95% of them don't even know they have it. Recent research has revealed that blood pressure goes up in line with the severity of the condition, which may explain why those affected are more susceptible to heart attacks and strokes.
Treatments vary. Many sufferers are overweight and can tackle the problem by changing their diet and avoiding alcohol just before bedtime. Doctors may prescribe continuous positive airway pressure, where air is blown into the back of the throat during the night using a silent pump.
A much more dangerous condition is narcolepsy. This is more rare than sleep apnoea and is thought to occur in one-in-10,000 people, although some doctors believe it is being isor • er a ec ing e area where regulation of sleep an.
takes place.
Sufferers can fall asleep whil: ing or even swimming. They porarily lose control of their m them to buckle at the knees or i crumple to the floor.
Narcolepsy