The 'Brake' road safety charity also found that men are more likely to allow themselves drive while too tired — nearly half of male respondents admitted to 'head-nodding' or falling into micro-sleeps, while just a fifth of women did.
Micro-sleeps can last from two to 30 seconds, and a driver experiencing a six-second micro-sleep at 120km/h on a motorway would travel 200m in that time.
One in 14 drivers overall admitted to actually ‘falling asleep' at the wheel — 14 percent of male drivers and 2 percent of female drivers.
Almost half (49%) of drivers admit driving after less than five hours' sleep — not nearly enough for safe driving. Again, this is more common among men (55%) than women (45%).
At-work drivers are particularly at risk from tiredness, because they typically spend much longer hours at the wheel. Nearly half (about four in ten) tiredness-related crashes involve someone driving a commercial vehicle.
