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A later bell cut teen crashes 70%
The Teton County result
Students there reported getting an extra hour of sleep, and the drop in vehicle accidents was the more remarkable result. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for late-stage teenagers in most developed nations, with suicide second.
Anti-lock braking systems keep a car's wheels from locking during hard braking so the driver can still steer. They cut accident rates by 20 to 25 percent, and some people considered that a revolution. In Teton County, the biological factor of sleep brought crashes down by 70 percent.
What other counties found
Several counties across the United States have delayed school start times and then measured what changed. One result nobody anticipated: the life expectancy of students increased. Given that car crashes lead the list of teenage deaths, a drop in crashes connects directly to it.
Why do teenagers fall asleep so late?
Puberty shifts the body clock later. Sleep researcher Mary Carskadon at Brown University found that the evening rise of melatonin comes roughly two hours later in mid-adolescence than in younger children. A teenager's brain is therefore not ready for sleep at the hour a younger child's would be. The shift is seen in many mammals as they reach sexual maturity.
How does drowsiness change crash risk?
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety analyzed a national crash database and compared drivers by how long they had slept the night before. Drivers who had slept four to five hours had a crash risk roughly four times that of drivers who had slept seven hours or more. The risk climbed further for those who had slept less. Drowsiness slows reaction time and lets attention lapse for seconds at a time.
Why do young drivers crash so often?
Teen drivers have the highest crash rate per mile driven of any age group, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Inexperience plays a part, because hazard detection improves with miles on the road. The brain's prefrontal regions, which weigh risk and restrain impulses, are still maturing into the mid-twenties. Sleep loss adds to the load by slowing reactions.
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