Sleepiness among Indian Taxi-Drivers: A Psychological Probe

Abstract

Background: Sleepiness during driving is a major though underrated factor in traffic crashes. Strenuous work schedules and lack of sleep is one of the major causal factors for traffic crashes all over the world. As driving is a complex task, trait and state factors play a crucial role in determining one’s driving behavior in a specific situation. Thus, a ‘state’ of feeling sleepy while driving may be related to other variety of factors. Objectives: In order to understand the role of these factors, aggression, dislike towards driving, hazard monitoring, fatigue proneness and thrill-seeking were taken as variables. Methodology: In this study, thirty-one male taxi drivers holding valid four-wheeler driving license and having average ten years of experience as driving taxi were taken as a sample. The individuals were randomly selected from various taxi services being operated in Chandigarh. The participants were administered Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the sub-scales of Driver Stress Inventory (DSI) along with a socio-demographic questionnaire. Findings: Results revealed significant positive relationship of sleepiness with hazard monitoring and fatigue proneness, negative correlation between sleepiness and thrill-seeking, while no relationship of sleepiness with aggression and dislike towards driving was observed. Conclusions: The socio-demographic profile of drivers revealed few interesting facts on their driving history, work and sleep patterns, traffic violation history and perspective on road crashes. Most of them did not appear for any driving test. Red light jumping was the majorly reported traffic violation. Smoking was the key strategy of remaining awake while feeling sleepy behind the wheel. Recommendation: Stringent procedure for obtaining driving license, strict penalties for violating traffic rules, implementation of in-vehicle fatigue monitoring systems and suggestion for enough time for sleep among commercial drivers.