Lack of sleep has serious consequences at home, in the workplace, at school, and on roadways. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) joins the National Sleep Foundation in a weeklong campaign to educate motorists during “Drowsy Driving Prevention Week,” November 1-7, 2015.

“Like alcohol and drugs, sleep loss or fatigue impairs driving skills such as hand-eye coordination, reaction time, decision-making, and judgment,” CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow said. “Drowsy driving can be just as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”

A recent survey by the American Automobile Association Foundation found that 41 percent of drivers admit to having fallen asleep or nodded off while driving at some point in their lives. In the same survey, more than one in four drivers admitted having driven when they were so sleepy they had a hard time keeping their eyes open within the past month.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that each year drowsy driving is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile collisions, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 fatalities. However, among all the major factors that cause or contribute to collisions, such as speeding, alcohol use, and weather situations, drowsiness is the most difficult for law enforcement and other collision investigators to detect and quantify.

In California in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available in the CHP’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, drowsy driving led to 4,284 total collisions, causing injuries to 2,046 people and resulting in the deaths of 28 people.

“Drowsy driving is especially concerning for our young drivers,” Commissioner Farrow said. “Traffic collisions are the number one killer of teenagers in the United States, ending more young lives every day than cancer, homicide, and suicide combined, and sleep-related collisions are most common in young people, who tend to stay up late, sleep too little, and drive at night.”