Peer-reviewed
Tefft, B.C. — Sleep (Oxford Academic)
Acute sleep deprivation and culpable motor vehicle crash involvement
Cited in 2 Likelier entries (2 risks, 0 decisions).
Used in 2 entries
For each citing entry, the verbatim excerpt and Likelier's calculation notes (how the source's number was converted to the lifetime-probability framing) are shown below. Click through to read the full claim ledger.
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- Statistic
Compared with drivers who slept 7-9 hours in the 24 hours before crashing, adjusted odds of culpable crash involvement were 1.3× for 6 hours of sleep, 1.9× for 5 hours, 2.9× (95% CI 1.4-6.2) for 4 hours, and 15.1× (95% CI 4.2-54.4) for less than 4 hours.
“"Drivers who reported having slept for 6, 5, 4, and less than 4 hr in the 24 hr before crashing had 1.3 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.04 to 1.7), 1.9 (1.1 to 3.2), 2.9 (1.4 to 6.2), and 15.1 (4.2 to 54.4) times the odds, respectively, of having been culpable for their crashes, compared with drivers who reported 7–9 hr of sleep."”
Calculation notes
Basis for the sleep-deprivation multiplier (2.9× at 4 hours of sleep, per-trip culpable-crash odds; 5 hours is 1.9×, below 4 hours 15.1×). Case-control analysis drawn from the NHTSA National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey: 6,845 drivers in a representative sample of crashes investigated in 2005-2007.
Independence note: Peer-reviewed AAA Foundation analysis of NMVCCS data — a different crash sample than CRSS and FARS.
Source date: 2018-09-01 · Accessed: 2026-07-26
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- Statistic
Compared with drivers who slept 7–9 hours in the 24 hours before crashing, adjusted odds of culpable crash involvement were 1.3× for 6–7 hours, 1.9× for 5–6 hours, 2.9× for 4–5 hours, and 15.1× (95% CI 4.2–54.4) for less than 4 hours.
“"Drivers who reported having slept for 4 hours and less than 4 hours in the 24 hours before crashing had 2.9 (95% CI = 1.4 to 6.2) and 15.1 (95% CI = 4.2 to 54.4) times the odds, respectively, of having been culpable for their crashes, compared with drivers who reported 7–9 hours of sleep."”
Calculation notes
Tefft 2018 is the peer-reviewed publication in Sleep of analysis drawn from the NHTSA National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (NMVCCS), a nationally representative sample of 5,470 crashes. The case-control design uses non-culpable drivers as the control arm, isolating the effect of sleep deprivation from time-of-day and exposure confounds. The 2.9× and 15.1× odds ratios for the <5-hour buckets are the multipliers used in the lifetime calculation: a conservative ~4× for "moderately drowsy" (4–5h sleep) anchors the headline ~1 in 26 estimate; the 15× high-end multiplier drives the upper uncertainty bound.
Source date: 2018-09-01 · Accessed: 2026-05-25
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