DROWSY DRIVING & TEENS

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Our driving sessions are normally 2 hours. However if a teen has not had enough sleep and starts to yawn and make mistakes after an hour or so, I will bring them home early.

Parents often do not consider whether their teen driver is perhaps too tired to go for a driving session.

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The worst situation I had with a 16 year old is he fell asleep at the light. He confessed to having stayed up all night watching Netflix on a school night.

Sleep deprivation is a common problem for teens.  As a result, teens – and especially young men - have a high risk of drowsy driving. 

   

Surveys show that most teens are getting less than eight hours of sleep on school nights. This means that the average high school student misses about one to three hours of sleep on school nights. 

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Parents often forget that too many obligations can compete for a healthy sleep schedule which will affect their teens safe driving abilities.

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The result is a weekly sleep debt of five to 15 hours.

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Teens compensate for weekday sleep loss by sleeping on the bus ride to and from school, sleeping much later on the weekends or even falling asleep in class.

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This ongoing sleep loss is a significant factor is fatal crashes.

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More info: CDC Drowsy Driving Asleep at the Wheel

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