New Blood Test Focuses on Sleep-Deprived Drivers
Hold on tightly to your steering wheels because a mind-boggling blood test is causing waves down under in the motor trade industry!
You heard it here first; those clever Aussies are trialling a blood-based test that could change how the authorities will deal with sleep-deprived drivers in traffic incidents.
Guess what? The UK government might also hop on board if the results come back positive!
Picture this: you’re involved in a traffic incident when out and about, and before you can even blink, you find yourself in a police station because they want to test you for sleep deprivation, alongside the usual tests like alcohol and drugs.
According to the latest government stats, up to a fifth of motorway accidents in the UK can be blamed on drivers snoozing at the wheel.
Private and motor trade insurance companies may be interested to learn who’s the biggest victims are, young men between 18 and 30.
Now, this blood test business is still in its early stages, but it’s gaining more and more support than a viral cat video!
Road Safety officials in Australia, who are their equivalent of the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) are splashing the cash to move this forward. Sonya Hurt, chief executive of the Road Safety Trust, said:
“Driver fatigue is a significant and serious issue. Government statistics show in 2021, 467 people were either killed or seriously injured in collisions where fatigue was noted as a contributory factor. Therefore, any work to reduce the impact of sleep deprivation is welcome as we strive to improve road safety and save lives.”
One smart in the know Professor, Clare Anderson, Associate Professor of Psychology at Monash University, recently spilled the beans to The Guardian:
“When you look at the major killers on the road, alcohol is one of them, speeding is another, and fatigue is one of them. But even though the solution to fatigue is quite simple, which is to get more sleep, our capacity to manage it is impaired. This is because we don’t have tools to be able to monitor it like we do with alcohol.”
Here’s the thing though: at present there is no specific law in the highway code about dozing off while driving.
But if you end up causing a fatality due to sleeping at the wheel, you can still face serious charges like death by dangerous driving or death by careless driving, and you are likely to find your motor insurance policy void.
If this new technological marvel proves to be as accurate as they say it is, then this could lead to new laws that really change the way drivers think before stepping into a vehicle.
Of course, the rule makers would need to set an official limit on tiredness or minimum sleep requirements. It would be like fighting sleepiness nights with rules!
Down in Australia, they’ve found five biomarkers in the blood that can snitch on you if you’ve been awake for a whopping 24 hours or longer.
But this new jazzy test is supposedly 90% accurate in real-life situations, looks like science is getting even smarter on the motor trade industry!
But don’t worry, you can sleep soundly for a while longer, as much more research needs to be carried out over the next few years before government can unleash this wacky blood test on motorists.
On a serious note, until then, keep your eyes peeled, your coffee strong, and make sure you are well rested before heading on any type of motoring journey.
