The world we live in today contains over one billion cars worldwide (wards Auto, 2011). Cars play a huge role in our daily lives, it is important that we know how to drive fittingly as well as safely. In 2011 a survey conducted by the Australian bureau of statistics found that fatigue was the third highest cause of fatal car crashes, only just behind speeding and intoxicated driving. In this essay it will be argued that a sleep deprived driver will have the same driving performance as an intoxicated driver. This argument is supported by two studies which discusses how driving performance is effected by sleep deprivation and alcohol. Both the studies found that fatigued driving lowers driving related tasks such as reaction time to almost the
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Williamson and Feyer conducted a study in the early 2000, which compares and contrasts the effects of sleep deprivation and alcohol on driving performance. In this study there were two independent variables (IV); partakers were given set amount of alcohol in four does to achieve a set BAC and the participants were also kept awake for a set amount of time to a maximum of 28 hours. In the alcohol section of the IV there were five levels of variations, but to test the sleep deprivation there were 15 levels of variation. To measure the effects of the IV on the experiment, a series of dependent variables (DV) were used in the form of tests; simple reaction time, Mackworth clock, dual task, tracking, spatial memory search, symbol digit test, grammatical test and memory search test. The DV was measured using computer simulated tests of those listed above. A total of 39 participants partook in this study which 37 of them were male and two were female. Thirty of the subjects volunteered from a transport company and nine from the Australian army. …show more content…
The first limitation is that study used all professional drivers or drivers that just drive for living, this could mean that the subjects were all used to being in situations of lengthy drives or driving sleep deprived. Even though this is not definite, the study does not correctly portray the mass amount of drivers in the public, and could mean that the results obtained from this study cannot be used to give evidence for the creation of new laws against fatigued driving. In relation to the thesis statement it is hard to say whether driving tiered has the same effect as drunk driving as this one study used drivers that had extensive experience on the road. Another issue with this study is that both the alcohol and sleep deprivation tests were conducted straight after each other, increasing the chances of carrying over the variables. To put this into context, a subject may have been given large and continuous amounts of alcohol on day two and may feel unwell. This reduces the chance of the subject performing to their full potential on day three in the sleep deprived tests, thus in theory corrupting the data acquired and making it less feasible to use as evidence in creation of new laws. Given all the negatives some positives did come
Williamson and Feyer conducted a study in the early 2000, which compares and contrasts the effects of sleep deprivation and alcohol on driving performance. In this study there were two independent variables (IV); partakers were given set amount of alcohol in four does to achieve a set BAC and the participants were also kept awake for a set amount of time to a maximum of 28 hours. In the alcohol section of the IV there were five levels of variations, but to test the sleep deprivation there were 15 levels of variation. To measure the effects of the IV on the experiment, a series of dependent variables (DV) were used in the form of tests; simple reaction time, Mackworth clock, dual task, tracking, spatial memory search, symbol digit test, grammatical test and memory search test. The DV was measured using computer simulated tests of those listed above. A total of 39 participants partook in this study which 37 of them were male and two were female. Thirty of the subjects volunteered from a transport company and nine from the Australian army. …show more content…
The first limitation is that study used all professional drivers or drivers that just drive for living, this could mean that the subjects were all used to being in situations of lengthy drives or driving sleep deprived. Even though this is not definite, the study does not correctly portray the mass amount of drivers in the public, and could mean that the results obtained from this study cannot be used to give evidence for the creation of new laws against fatigued driving. In relation to the thesis statement it is hard to say whether driving tiered has the same effect as drunk driving as this one study used drivers that had extensive experience on the road. Another issue with this study is that both the alcohol and sleep deprivation tests were conducted straight after each other, increasing the chances of carrying over the variables. To put this into context, a subject may have been given large and continuous amounts of alcohol on day two and may feel unwell. This reduces the chance of the subject performing to their full potential on day three in the sleep deprived tests, thus in theory corrupting the data acquired and making it less feasible to use as evidence in creation of new laws. Given all the negatives some positives did come