On dates like Christmas, many people travel to reunite with their families. It is also typical of the Christmas holidays to listen to traffic campaigns to try to avoid accidents and insist on the importance of habits such as not drinking alcohol when going to take the car, or not being distracted with the mobile phone. However, there are other factors that are also important when driving, such as sleep or driver anxiety. A recent study carried out in France has shown that poor and poor sleep is a clear risk factor for suffering a traffic accident, as are high levels of anxiety.
In this work, published in 2014 in the journal PLOS One , a total of 272 cases of traffic accidents attended by the emergency service and another 272 drivers as a control group, who had not suffered any accident and who were stopped by the emergency department, were analyzed. random traffic police. All of them were asked about working hours, driving habits, sleep and their disorders and consumption of alcohol or other substances.
The results of the study give a lot to think about especially in these days when there is so much movement of vehicles. Analysis of the data collected showed that falling asleep at the wheel was the factor that most predicted traffic accidents . In addition, people who said they had slept poorly in recent months had a more than 3 times greater risk of having an accident, as did those who had slept six hours or less, whose risk of an accident was 1.69 times greater than that of drivers who slept more than 6 hours.
On the other hand, we find a relevant finding and perhaps less considered by the drivers themselves. Feeling high anxiety or nervousness doubled the risk of an accident, and taking more than two medications in the last 24 hours tripled the risk.
The conclusion is clear: to avoid accidents you have to consider multiple factors such as sleeping well, being calm, not taking drugs, not having sex at the wheel and paying close attention to the road. All precautions are little when it comes to arriving safely at our destination.
Marisa Fernández, Senior Neuropsychologist, Unobrain
