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If you thought texting behind the wheel was a major on-the-road risk, check out these statistics from AAA about drowsy driving. According to their study, Asleep at the Wheel: The Prevalence and Impact of Drowsy Driving, about 16.5% of all fatal crashes involve a drowsy driver. Even more alarming, 41% of drivers admit to having “fallen asleep or nodded off” while driving at some point in their lives and more than one in four drivers admits to having driven when they were “so sleepy that they had a hard time keeping their eyes open.”
Oddly enough, the report states that close to 60% of respondents reported they had been driving for less than an hour before they fell asleep, and more than one-quarter of respondents said they had fallen asleep behind the wheel between the hours of noon and 5pm.
These statistics are frightening if you add to that the number of drivers who are distracted by cell phone calls or texting and those that are driving under the influence.
