To access the session recording, navigate to the content tab and click the view video button. 

Session Schedule

Find a specific presentation in the course by navigating to the timestamp indicated below.

0:00:00
Drowsy driving: Summary of the scientific evidence on the causes, prevalence, consequences and costs
Clare Anderson (United Kingdom)

0:19:10
Overview of international regulations on sleep disorders and drowsy driving across the world
Walter McNicholas (Ireland)

0:37:50
Overview of international public health and road design approaches to reducing drowsy driving
Arezu Najafi (Iran)

0:53:35
Summary of research evidence on detecting driver state and trait drowsiness from laboratory and on-road driving studies and commercial vehicle systems
Mark Howard (Australia)

Presentation not available: Gaps in regulations and public health initiatives to reduce drowsy driving crashes in private drivers and related solutions
Andrew Vakulin (Australia)

1:13:20
Question and answer

Summary

This symposium is submitted on behalf of the WSS global sleep and road safety taskforce with the aim to present evidence, challenges and opportunities for global efforts to combat drowsy driving.
Excessive sleepiness (i.e., the inability to maintain wakefulness or alertness) increases the risk of a motor vehicle accident by 250% 1. Drowsy driving is implicated in up to 20% of all motor vehicle crashes, which increases to 30% for single vehicle crashes 2, and remains a major road safety challenge globally. The approaches to managing driver drowsiness to reduce the risk of road crashes through regulations varies greatly across countries ranging from public education and awareness raising, physical road characteristics and fitness to drive guidelines to no or limited approaches.
The first part of this symposium will provide an overview of the established and new scientific evidence on the impact of drowsiness on driving safety and road crashes including the biological and behavioral causes and risk factors, global prevalence estimates and societal costs. The second presentation will provide an overview of the current approaches and methods adopted globally by different countries/regions to reduce the risk of road crashes, and present any evidence on their effectiveness in reducing crash risk.
The second half of this symposium will focus on the rapidly evolving innovations in technology to monitor driver drowsiness as a vital tool to combat drowsy driving in the future. Methodologies to detect driver drowsiness range from subjective self-reported sleepiness ratings (Karolinska sleepiness scale), driver physiology (eyelid closure, heart rate variation, electroencephalography), overt driver symptoms (such as fighting sleep, heavy eyelids), vehicular performance features (lane deviations, steering wheel angle) or a combination of these features 3-6. The third presentation will summarize the latest research evidence on technologies for detecting driver state and trait sleepiness from lab and on-road studies highlighting the opportunities, limitations and challenges. The fourth presentation will describe new in-car fatigue management technologies and summarize the evidence (or lack thereof) on their accuracy and effectiveness, which will set the scene for the last panel discussion session of the symposium.
Despite the limitations, most new vehicles already utilize drowsiness detection of some sort and therefore these technologies provide unique and unprecedented future opportunities for rapid collection of big data on continuous driver drowsiness monitoring and relating this data directly to road crashes. Ultimately this would provide the much-needed means to track the risk factors for drowsy driving and evaluate the impact of strategies and interventions in reducing the risk. The last session of this symposium is a panel discussion which will be facilitated by the chairs and comprise the symposium speakers and panel experts from around the world. The panel will engage the audience in a discussion about the opportunities for collective efforts, collaborations and partnerships needed to best utilize, learn and deploy the data and evidence from drowsiness detection technologies on a global scale towards reducing the risk of drowsiness related road crashes.

References
1. 10.1093/sleep/zsx134
2. 10.1590/S0100-879X2008001200014
3. 10.1109/TITS.2018.2868499
4,. 0.1088/1361-6579/abfbb8
5. 10.1093/sleep/zsad316
6. 10.1016/j.smrv.2019.03.004

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this CME activity, participants will be able to:
• Learn about the biology of sleep and circadian rhythms that leads to drowsy driving (Insufficient sleep, behavioral, sleep disorders etc.)
• Recognize the characteristics of drowsy driving crashes and learn about the global prevalence estimates and costs of drowsy driving related crashes
• Learn about the national regulation on drowsy driving across 35 countries covering 750 million people
• Learn about the whether the regulations are effective in reducing drowsy driving crashes and find examples of successfully implemented regulations
• Learn about various international approaches to increase public awareness and education on the dangers of drowsy driving
• Learn about practical road design features to combat drowsy driving and the effectiveness of these approaches in reducing drowsy driving crashes
• Learn about the various research methods and approaches for detecting driver sleepiness
• Learn about the potential l translation of these approaches for road side testing or fitness to drive applications
• Learn about vehicle technology for detecting driver drowsiness and understand the challenges/opportunities for improving this technology to improve road safety
• Explain what makes a successful drowsy driving public health initiatives and regulation
• Define success in drowsy driving regulation
• Describe how new technology can help with monitoring and evaluating success in new and existing regulations