Driving is affected by sleep apnoea. If you have a commercial licence there are strict rules about needing to use of CPAP.

• To avoid driving if they are sleepy,
• to comply with apnoea treatment,
• must use and properly maintain the CPAP machine or other device
• attend follow up appointments
• Be honest about how sleepy you are when seeing your Doctor

Fatigue related accidents

• 4 to 10% of all fatal motor accidents 1 — 4% of all highway crashes
• mild OSA - Odds ratio of 2 for recent road traffic accident
• in severe OSA - an odds ratio of 7.3 for multiple accidents
• Falling asleep at wheel 70 to 80% of serious truck crashes

Dozing off driving is not good

The answer is Power Naps:   aim for 15 to 30 minutes;  limit naps to 30 minutes to avoid reaching deep sleep or can still be “ groggy” with Sleep inertia afterwards.

More nap sleep means a faster reaction time ; less tired and more alert at end of a shift  at work. There should be no impact on subsequent sleep at home.

Lack of sleep accumulates over time like a debt: 

Don’t burn the candle at both ends

• After 9 days of only 4 hours of sleep a night, the effect is like 2 ½ days without sleep.
• After 18 hours awake, fatigue levels similar to blood alcohol of .05.
• If awake 23 hours without sleep fatigue levels similar to blood alcohol of 0.12.