Take the pledge!
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- Published on Sunday, 10 April 2016 12:30
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Trending petition
PAOV – There's a new petition taking off on Change.org, and we think you might be interested in signing it.
Cette pétition prend de l'ampleur sur Change.org, souhaitez-vous la signer? Elle invite les gens à signer la promesse de ne pas conduire en état de fatigue avancée ou avec les facultés affaiblies.
Petitioning Global Citizens Take the Pledge to Not Drive Drowsy #TakeABreakToStayAwake
Petition by
Arianna Huffington
New York,
New York
7,935
Supporters
Sign Ariana's petition
“Don’t Drink and Drive.”
“Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk”
You’ve probably heard these phrases many times – they’re part of a broader campaign to curb the epidemic of drunk driving that leads to thousands of deaths in North America each year.
Awareness around the dangers of drunk driving — and just as important, awareness about how we can prevent it — came about because of the deliberate effort to reframe the issue as a public health crisis. And it has been a tremendous success.
But there’s a similarly deadly menace on our roads — one given far less attention.
Recent studies have shown that “drowsy driving,” or driving tired after too little sleep, is just as dangerous as drunk driving. In Canada, fatigue is the third-highest cause of collisions. It is a factor in up to 21% of collisions, according to 2009 data from Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, and results in 400 deaths and 2,100 serious injuries every year.
Driving after being awake for 18 hours gives you the cognitive impairment equal to a blood alcohol level of .05 (near the legal limit in Canada), and after 24 hours without sleep, it’s up to .10 (legally drunk). Just like being drunk, fatigue dulls your decision-making skills, reaction time, situational awareness and memory — all of which create a perfect, and deadly, storm when getting behind the wheel.
The attitudes toward sleep that fuel this epidemic run deep within our culture. We often praise those who pull all-nighters, celebrate those who manage to only sleep a couple of hours a night, and validate the macho status that comes from pushing ourselves to the limits. But we need a wakeup call.
I had my own wakeup call in April of 2007, when I collapsed at work from exhaustion, hitting my head on my desk, breaking my cheek bone, and waking up in a pool of my own blood. Thankfully, I was not behind the wheel of a car at the time.
Many others are not so lucky.
The tragedy is that each one of these deaths is preventable. But the good news is that the solutions are completely within our grasp. Today, technology makes it easy to get a ride whenever you need one. Ridesharing companies like Uber — with whom we are partnering in our campaign against drowsy driving — will take you wherever you need to go at the push of a button. So there's no reason to get behind the wheel when you're tired.
So please join me in taking the pledge to not drive drowsy, to not let your friends and family drive drowsy, and to join the effort to bring the same attention to drowsy driving as we brought to drunk driving.
When we do, we can succeed not only in raising awareness, but in saving lives.
#TakeABreakToStayAwake
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