What are the chances of falling asleep at the wheel?

Falling asleep at the wheel accounts for one-fifth of all accidents on non-urban roads, according to Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Laboratory at the University of Loughborough.

• Sleep-related accidents are worse because of the high speed of impact.
• Sleep kills at least as many people as alcohol. It is quite common for workers to be driving around with a similar level of impairment because of sleepiness as someone at or beyond the legal limit for alcohol.

There is no similar level of public disapproval for those driving around sleepily. But these people are twice as likely to kill someone as in a normal road shunt.