Up to 10 percent of road traffic accidents have this psychological cause.
Drowsiness is a major cause of road traffic accidents, involved in up to 10 percent of crashes.
The natural vibrations of a car make people sleepy just 15 minutes after setting off.
People reach significant levels of drowsiness after 30 minutes and peak drowsiness after 60 minutes.
The Australian researchers hope the finding can be used to help design new seats to keep drivers awake.
Professor Stephen Robinson, who led the study, said:
“We know 1 in 5 Australians have fallen asleep at the wheel and we know that drowsy driving is a significant issue for road safety.
When you’re tired, it doesn’t take much to start nodding off and we’ve found that the gentle vibrations made by car seats as you drive can lull your brain and body.
Our study shows steady vibrations at low frequencies — the kind we experience when driving cars and trucks — progressively induce sleepiness even among people who are well rested and healthy.
From 15 minutes of getting in the car, drowsiness has already begun to take hold. In half an hour, it’s making a significant impact on your ability to stay concentrated and alert.
To improve road safety, we hope that future car seat designs can build in features that disrupt this lulling effect and fight vibration-induced sleepiness.”
Dr Mohammad Fard, study co-author, said:
“We want to study a larger cohort, particularly to investigate how age may affect someone’s vulnerability to vibration-induced drowsiness as well as the impact of health problems such as sleep apnea.
Our research also suggests that vibrations at some frequencies may have the opposite effect and help keep people awake.
So we also want to examine a wider range of frequencies, to inform car designs that could potentially harness those ‘good vibrations’.”
The study was published in the journal Ergonomics (Zhang et al., 2018).
