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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

May I urge the Minister to seize the opportunity provided by the Road Safety Bill to address the problems of unidentified and untreated sleep disorders among drivers, as a means of improving road safety? The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) mentioned this issue earlier. The Bill, and the Department for Transport’s ““Tiredness kills”” campaign, include welcome measures—the Secretary of State mentioned picnic areas—to address the problem of sleepiness in tired but otherwise healthy drivers. However, those measures fail to educate or regulate the estimated 4 per cent. of the middle-aged population who suffer from the sleep disorder known as sleep apnoea, and who might be unaware that they have a medical condition, as such conditions are not checked for under the present licensing system. Sufferers of obstructive sleep apnoea have been shown to have a worse driving performance than healthy drivers who are over the alcohol limit. A case study from the Sleep Apnoea Trust illustrates the problem. It states:"““For many years prior to my car accident there were periods during the day when I felt utterly exhausted. Unknown to me I was experiencing poor quality sleep every night and to an extent it was affecting my whole life. My ability to concentrate was poor. In August 1997 we had been out walking in the morning, had a light lunch (no alcohol), a further walk in the afternoon, and I was driving home when I apparently dozed off and next thing was that we hit a tree at about 60 mph. Fortunately, neither I nor my wife was seriously injured, although I was taken by ambulance to hospital with an aggravated spinal complaint.""The car following me up the hill was being driven by an off duty traffic policeman on holiday. Being first on the scene he checked for alcohol then asked several questions from which I subsequently realised (after diagnosis with sleep apnoea) that he was obviously familiar with the condition. Previous visits to my GP had not revealed anything untoward, it was put down to long and irregular hours (I suspect more than likely the general lack of understanding of the Sleep Apnoea condition).””" The prevalence of sleep disorders is significant and growing. As obesity is a contributory factor to OSA, the incidence of the disorder is likely to increase. The largest British survey to date of drivers of heavy goods vehicles studied 900 drivers over two years and found that one in six had severe OSA. It also found that one in three HGV drivers had moderate OSA. Awareness of sleep disorders among members of the public, drivers and employers of professional drivers is unacceptably low.