Impact and risk of fatigue associated with employees who drive.
Fatigue is one of the serious causes of road safety issues, our last article discussed ways in which employees who drive could battle with fatigue. This article will focus on the impact and risk associated with employees who drive.
Fatigue is one of the major causes of road crashes in road safety either through less sleep, work overload etc.
How dangerous and fatal is fatigue as a road safety issue?
Below are risks associated with fatigue among employees who drive.
1. Decreased in driving awareness
Employees who drive during the period during which they are tired see likely not to be aware of the driving environment Drivers need to continuously take in and process driving environment information âbytesâ. Mental fatigue dulls a driverâs senses and slows their ability to absorb critical driving information; their picture of the driving environment is incomplete.
2. Reduced ability in identifying key information.
The driving environment exposes every driver to an overwhelming volume of information. Drivers have to distinguish which pieces of information are important to their driving decisions. Mental fatigue reduces a driverâs ability to select which information requires their attention and response.
3. Diminished judgment
Drivers need to process critical driving information and decide what actions to take to address a condition or hazard. Mental fatigue reduces a driverâs ability to make the right call or even think right at the time when some necessary information is required.
4. Decrease in response to situations
Impaired ability to respond to stimuli â mental and physical fatigue results in slower reaction times. That fraction of a second can be the difference between a near miss and a costly crash. In severe cases, fatigued drivers completely fail to respond to a stimulus, in a situation in which the driver didnât see it, didnât hear it and therefore made no reaction to avoid the hazard.
5. Inadequate ability to solve the problem
Fatigue reduces the ability of the driver to solve immediate and necessary problems.
Reduced ability to judge distance, speed, and time. Forgetting or ignoring normal checks or procedures is also one of the issues being discussed, but mentally fatigued drivers demonstrate an inaccurate recall of operational events.
6. Loss of self-awareness.
Mental fatigue reduces a driverâs ability to correctly detect and judge their own level of fatigue. Fatigue can also have an impact on the ability of the driver to differentiate between what is the right or wrong decision to make at such a time.
