A 25-year-old Specialist assigned to U.S. Army Reserve Command died in an automobile mishap near Madera, California, at local. The Soldier was on his way to battle assembly when he collided head-on with a vehicle, resulting in a post-crash fire. Additional information is currently unavailable.
Since FY20, the Army has lost an average of 36 Soldiers a year to automobile mishaps. This mishap was the 25th automobile fatality of FY25 and below the number of fatalities for this same time last year.
Safety Tips
Whatever the source — lack of or poor-quality sleep, long hours of work or driving, shift work, stress or sleep disorders — fatigue affects your ability to drive safely. Driver fatigue is a major workplace safety risk.
- As many as one in five fatal crashes in the general population involve driver fatigue.
- Companies use a fatigue risk management system to promote alertness among workers, identify fatigue-prone tasks and lessen fatigue and its potential consequences.
- After 17 consecutive hours awake, impairment is equivalent to having a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .05. After 24 hours awake, impairment is equivalent to a BAC of .10.
- A survey of the U.S. workforce found that 37% of workers got less than the recommended minimum of seven hours of sleep.
- Most adults need seven to nine hours of sleep each day.
Causes of fatigue
- Being awake for many consecutive hours
- Not getting enough sleep over multiple days
- Time of day (Your body has a sleep/wake cycle that tells you when to be alert and when it’s time to sleep. The urge to sleep is most intense in the early morning hours.)
- Monotonous tasks or long periods of inactivity
- Health factors (e.g., sleep disorders or medications that cause drowsiness)
Effects of fatigue on driving
- Nodding off
- Reacting more slowly to changing road conditions, other drivers or pedestrians
- Making poor decisions
- Drifting from your lane
- Experiencing tunnel vision (when you lose sense of what's going on in the periphery)
- Experiencing microsleeps (brief sleep episodes lasting from a fraction of a second up to 30 seconds)
- Forgetting the last few miles driven
What you can do
- Plan your off-duty activities to allow enough time for adequate sleep.
- Get enough sleep (seven to nine hours each day). If fatigue persists after adequate sleep, get screened for health problems that may be affecting your sleep, such as sleep apnea.
- Create a sleeping environment that helps you sleep well — a dark, quiet, cool room with no electronics.
- If you feel fatigued while driving, pull over, drink a cup of coffee and take a 15- to 30-minute nap before continuing. The effects are only temporary. The only "cure" for fatigue is sleep.
- Watch yourself and your peers for fatigue-related symptoms.
- Report instances of fatigue in yourself and others to your direct supervisor, who can help determine the safest course of action.