Driver Fatigue: A Curricular Study

A rhythm is something that is regularly repeated. All living organisms experience rhythmic changes which tend to coincide with seasonal or daily environmental changes. Most organisms have an internal biological clock called endogenous pacemakers, which are influences by external environmental factors called exogenous zeitgebers, these control periodic changes. The sleep wake cycle is a circadian rhythm that repeats itself every 24 hours. However these can become desynchronised, resulting in a disruption of your biological rhythm. It can be disrupted by many factors, including Jet lag and shift work.

Circadian rhythms occur every 24 hours; an example of a circadian rhythm is the sleep-waking cycle. We are diurnal animals who are active during the daytime and asleep at night, other animals are nocturnal they are active at night but asleep during the day. The circadian rhythm depends on the interaction of physiological and psychological processes to be tuned into the sleep-waking cycle so energy is provided when needed. As diurnal humans we have a fairly stable sleep pattern with the time we go to sleep and the time we wake up, this consistency suggests an internal mechanism controls sleep, endogenous pacemaker. However, this can be overridden by external factors, exogenous zeitgebers.

The human body has a plethora of rhythms that regulate activity such as behavioral processes, physiological functions, moods, and performance. Sleep is a major action that falls into this category of

Driver fatigue may not be illegal but it is lethal. Fatigue is a discreet killer that occurs for drivers no matter their age, their driving experience, how long the trip is or the time of day. In 2012, there were more fatigue related crashes than drink driving crashes in NSW. When someone doesn’t sleep for the previous 17 years before driving, they have an equal effect to someone who drives with a blood alcohol level of 0.05. A study by Nordbakke and Sagberg in 2007 concluded that drivers had a standard knowledge on preventative actions and the factors influencing the risk of falling asleep. But, despite this knowledge, drivers continue to drive on the road whilst tired.

Regimented sleep schedule: By sticking with a regimented or strict sleep schedule, your circadian rhythm should adapt. Those with variable sleep schedules may have a circadian rhythm that isn’t aligned with their sleep schedule, thus resulting in all types of physiological chaos. Decreasing this physiological chaos with a good sleep schedule may also reduce the

Now-a-days driver drowsiness is one of the major causes for many motor vehicle catastrophes and it can impair the human brain as much as an alcohol or drugs can. It can be due to fatigue, lack of sleep, driving for a long time, circadian low rhythm and use of medication. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), over 1.5 million people die per year and over 40 million people have severe injuries. From the statistics, we can conclude that there is an urge for developing a system that can detect drowsiness and alert the driver before any hazard happens.

People in West Virginia, and throughout the U.S., are generally aware of the dangers of driving while drunk or distracted. Many motorists, however, overlook the dangers of driving while fatigued. According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, it is estimated that drowsy drivers are involved in 328,000 motor vehicle accidents each year. Like other collisions, these types of crashes frequently result in serious injuries and death for other motorists, passengers and pedestrians.

In these chapters, it covered handling emergencies and the effects on driver's condition. When handling emergency there can be many scenarios like vehicle malfunctions, driver errors roadway hazards, and collisions. Effects on driver's condition vary with emotions while driving, physical senses while driving and physical disabilities.

Circadian rhythm is another sleep disorder that has to do with our body functions. In this case, our body clocks are off, due an internal change or external factors like a change in time zones or regions where a midnight sun occurs during a 24-hour period. Bright lights in a room have a similar effect on sleep.

Fatigue is a growing concern for law enforcement agencies, especially when it comes to officers that work second jobs (Doerner, 2012). Another concern would be officers using their sick time to work a second job, thus causing staffing issues for the agency (Doerner, 2012). Depending on the type of secondary employment, there could also be a conflict of interest further concerning the law enforcement agency (Doerner, 2012).

Arguably the greatest threat to freight transportation safety is operator fatigue. This human factor is a prevalent risk across most major modes. The problem is so significant that the National Transportation Safety Board has identified the need to reduce accidents and incidents caused by marine, aviation and pipeline operator fatigue to be among their “most wanted” list (NTSB, 2009). While this list does not include truck driver fatigue, it does include preventing medically unqualified drivers from operating commercial vehicles, which may be indirectly tied to fatigue.

If this cycle is broken during a night's sleep the body will be unable to function properly. A sleep schedule is the biological rhythms of the body. It generally occurs for appoximately seven hours

The biological clock is also known as the circadian rhythm: circa means “around,” and dies means “day” in Latin. It’s defined as a “24-hour cycle and is usually understood as a sleep-wake cycle, which makes us feel sleepy when the sun sets and wakeful when the sun rises”. According to Ph.D. Jim Waterhouse at Liverpool John Moores University, “The body clock so precisely controls our body, disrupting which can have profound implications.” Furthermore, researchers substantiate that it’s also in charge of one’s sleep, hunger, thirst, mental alertness, mood swing, immunity, etc. The biological clock is just a dissimilar facet of time. While physical clocks literally depict the abstract ticking time, body clocks open to a distinct perception of inner-body time, which do not rely on Earth’s rotation but on the reactions among neurons

Circadian rhythm is a daily cycle of activity that is performed. For example, going to the gym, school, and then work, is a daily cycle, whereas sitting on the couch all day and occasionally driving to the store and back is not. It is doing something with your body, but not over doing it. Stress reduction techniques such as yoga and meditation helps to release energy. And treating insomnia in its early stages helps prevent psychiatric disorders such as depression. The longer you wait to try to cure insomnia the longer and harder it is going to be.

Aside from noticing night and day and clocks our body has its own system to tell us when to sleep and when to wake, our circadian rhythm. The human body naturally runs on a twenty five hour clock, so living on a twenty four hour schedule is often hard on the body because it loses an hour each day. On top of this natural loss most people do not get the right amount of sleep each night which can cause a whole host of problems. This is part of