Seasonal Variation of Falling Asleep while Driving: An Examination of Fatal Road Accidents

Road accidents related to sleep show a clear time-of-day pattern. Following the previous finding that such accidents in Finland happen more often (absolutely and relatively) during the summer months, especially during the afternoon, the main aim of this study was to reveal the factors behind such seasonality. The data included the computerized database of the Finnish fatal road accident investigation system restricted to nonprofessional, non-intoxicated car drivers (N=1464) and sample of the original folders (N=101). The results of the analysis on the sample of the original folders showed that investigation teams adequately documented and explained their decisions concerning falling-asleep accidents and that the observed seasonality is a real phenomenon, not a result of bias of the teams. With the exception of 26-35-year-olds, men of all of the other age groups had a notable absolute and relative increase of sleep-related accidents in the summer. Young male drivers (< or =25 yrs), followed by the oldest group (> or =66 yrs) had the highest increase in the absolute number of sleep-related accidents between the summer and winter months, while the relative change was the highest for ages 56-65. Women showed similar trends. A detailed analysis of 44 cases of summer afternoon falling-asleep accidents revealed that many drivers were engaged in unusual activities the day or night before the accident. The findings are discussed in relation to different driving and lifestyle habits between seasons, including sleep quality. Preliminary results of this study were presented at the 17th Congress of the European Sleep Research Society, Prague 2004.