Study: Sleepy Drivers Causing More Deadly Accidents

While speeding, texting, and drunk driving receive much attention, a new study out Monday morning shows drowsy driving leads to nearly 17-percent of all fatal accidents.

The AAA Foundation study also shows one in four drivers have reported falling asleep while driving.

The foundation conducted a nationally representative telephone survey of U.S. drivers this spring. The report says 41% of drivers admit to having "fallen asleep or nodded off" while driving at some point in their lives, including eleven percent within the past year and 3.9% in the past month.

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" within the past month, according to the report released Monday.

More than one in four (26.1%) of those who reported having fallen asleep while driving in the past 12 months reported that they had done so between the hours of noon and 5 PM; as many as those who reported having done so between midnight and 6 AM (24.7%).

The study also shows fifty-six percent of drivers said that their last instance of falling asleep while driving occurred on a multi-lane divided highway. Three of five (58.8%) who reported having fallen asleep while driving in the past 12 months reported that they had been driving for less than an hour before they fell asleep, whereas one in five (20.6%) reported having been driving for 3 hours or longer.

Only 27.7% reported that they realized before they started driving that they might have difficulty staying awake; 71.0% reported having felt awake enough to drive.

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