A study from AAA reports that drivers who are sleep-deprived are twice as likely to get into an accident as those who have slept well, reports an ABC news affiliate out of Cleveland.
Dr. Kingman Strohl is a sleep specialist at University Hospitals. According to Strohl, your level of impairment behind the wheel when you have been awake for 17 to 23 hours is the same as being legally drunk.
“The problems that sleepiness give you is divided attention,” Strohl said. “That is thinking of two things at once and reacting to them. Reaction time. And so being unreactive for a couple seconds at 60 miles an hour gives you a football field of accident opportunity.”
Besides those risks, poor sleep habits can lead to health problems like diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
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