Punishing fatigued drivers is hard
21.05.2010The police need education and proper methods in order to be able to recognise fatigued drivers. According to a questionnaire study published by Liikenneturva, almost all the polled police and public prosecutors considered driving while fatigued to be an uncaring act which causes a traffic risk comparable to DUI. At the same time, they stressed how difficult it is to determine driver fatigue.
Fatigue has been assessed to contribute to as much as 30 % of all traffic accidents. The law on road traffic forbids driving while fatigued. It has been estimated that, on average, one fatigued driver receives a penalty for his/her actions every day.
The study, conducted by the University of Helsinki researcher Igor Radun and his colleagues, delved into the experiences of those professionals who apply the law in their daily work, namely police officers and prosecutors. Of the polled, two-thirds considered the behaviour of a fatigued driver to be extremely uncaring.
The polled professionals did emphasise, however, that it is difficult to interfere in fatigue driving since there is no clear-cut fatigue measurement system. Almost half of the polled agreed – at least to a degree – with the statement “it is impossible to define fatigue driving in the law without developing a fatigue meter first”.