The risk of driving without getting enough rest -

55% will go on holiday even if they have a sleep attack.

Between 2011 and 2015, lack of rest caused 20,600 accidents.

While the emergencies attend to the driver, Civil Guard agents investigate how the accident could have occurred. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon on a day without a cloud. It is a long straight with impeccable asphalt, but there are no brake tracks or any evidence that the motorist tried to avoid going off the road. He was alone and at high speed, but he was lucky: the safety measures of the car and that it has not overturned or crashed have prevented greater evils. You will be able to tell it. You can say that it was a bad dream.

Because yes, it was a dream. Specifically, a microsleep, the small nap of a couple of seconds that gave his brain subjected to extreme fatigue and that was the ultimate reason for the accident. The driver already knows this. These episodes lead to a momentary loss of consciousness and those who suffer from them do not realize it until they have occurred. Another thing is that in the previous 40 kilometers his body was a succession of alerts and warnings: itchy eyes, heaviness in his arms, slower reflexes, that not finding a comfortable posture in any way…

What is told is as figurative as it is real. Because it is the X-ray of a type of accident caused by drowsiness, an episode that many motorists will have experienced and for which, however, there are no official statistics. Nor does it seem to worry Spanish drivers too much when, traditionally, in our country people sleep less than in others.

Absent-mindedness after 40% of accidents with victims.

The different investigations agree that drowsiness – that state between wakefulness and sleep – or falling asleep are behind many rear-end collisions and road departures, but sleep does not appear as a specific cause in police reports. So they move on to that catch-all that is distractions. According to the DGT, absent-mindedness causes more than 40% of accidents with victims and at least 500 people die each year as a result of them.

As if that were not enough, sleepiness also affects the personality, raising self-confidence (in a similar way to how drugs or alcohol do) but also making us more irascible.

Greater severity in Spain, where people sleep less.

In fact, there are studies that indicate that, after 17 hours awake and in continuous activity, reflexes decrease as much as if you had 0.5 grams of alcohol in your blood, which is the maximum limit allowed.

The latter forces us to relate the problem of sleep to professional drivers who spend long days behind the wheel. Fatigue causes about 20% of commercial vehicle accidents in the EU.

Scientifically, it has been shown that sleep attacks especially between three and five in the morning and between two and four in the afternoon (be careful with copious meals). And it is known that excessively monotonous driving also favors it. But we will feel sleepy whenever we do not get enough rest.

As a general rule, you should sleep between seven and nine hours, although it will depend on each body. Lowering that threshold, for example subtracting between one and two hours per day, a sleep debt appears that becomes chronic.

It also influences that it is not a quality rest, because there are sleepless nights or sleep is not deep. Sleep disorders should also be mentioned, which affect 25% of the population, 5% chronically.

Among them, narcolepsy (the appearance of sudden and irresistible sleep attacks) prevents driving. The same happens with freediving. Those who suffer from it suffer pauses in breathing, or have shallow breaths that cause up to 400 short awakenings during the night. As a result, the risk of suffering an accident if they get behind the controls of a car doubles, although with the right treatment that exposure disappears.

Finally, there are medications. Some have effects on driving. It is advisable to ask the doctor or pharmacist, although since 2007 all medicines with this problem must warn you on the packaging. They do it with a red car inside a triangle.

And in any case, never mix medicine with alcohol or drugs.

The dangers of falling asleep, in data.

200 kilometers: Or two hours. Once these limits are exceeded, it is advisable to stop and, if possible, rest for half an hour. Although 13 million drivers do not follow the advice of the DGT in this regard.

24%: Percentage of accidents that, according to a German study, occur on the country’s highways because of these unconscious snoops.

17 million: They are the motorists who admit to having been drowsy at the wheel.

64%: Percentage of professional drivers who have had an incident as a result of accumulated fatigue, according to a survey by the company Mix Telematics.

20 minutes: If sleep occurs, stop in a safe place and sleep at least that long. A coffee will lose effectiveness over time.

1,500 deaths: Estimated number of fatalities each year in the US due to not having rested enough.

2: Since the driver does not react or is late, an accident due to falling asleep multiplies the risk of death by two.

7-9 hours: Sleep to be rested, although it depends on the person and age. Sleeping less creates a chronic deficit and going below four hours, even if it is only one day, is dangerous.

21/30 years: Age of the drivers most involved in accidents caused by falling asleep at the wheel. Most accidents occur during the early hours of Saturday to Sunday.

2-3 seconds: It is the duration of a microsleep. In that interval, at 120 km/h, 100 meters are traveled, like a soccer field. 8.1 million motorists say they have suffered these episodes.