Driving While Sleepy
There are some things you just should not do while you drive, like consuming alcohol or watching television, because reasonable people would never behave in such a manner. Sleeping just happens to be one of those things. While it takes little explanation to figure out why sleep-driving constitutes negligence, the more practical danger to drivers is that they will get in the car after getting too little sleep and thereby risk falling asleep at the wheel.
This concern looms largest for those whose profession entails a lot of driving, especially people like truck drivers who are on the road constantly. Many professional drivers make the decision to forego sleep in order to deliver their load more quickly or get back home to their families sooner. This may lead the driver to get behind the wheel while he or she is not fully alert, greatly increasing the likelihood that the driver will fall asleep while driving. Obviously a tractor-trailer speeding down the road unmanned is a recipe for disaster, a lot of liability, and probable loss of a job or maybe even a life. This could result in an enormous amount of liability for both the driver and the company for which the driver works should the driver’s failure to stay alert behind the wheel be found as a proximate cause of the truck accident in East Tennessee.
Of course it is not just professional drivers who need to be aware of the risk of falling asleep behind the wheel. Anyone who gets behind the wheel after having little or no sleep the night before runs the risk of being found liable for negligence should the driver’s inability to stay fully alert behind the wheel cause an accident. It is important to remember that although falling asleep while driving or being too sleepy to stay alert behind the wheel is clearly an unintentional action, it can lead to liability for negligence just the same as intentional actions like speeding and tailgating if such activity causes a crash that leads to a personal injury suit.
