Most people need approximately eight hours of sleep every night, but a lot of Americans are operating on a sleep deficit. Whether a newborn kept them up all night, a sick toddler, a neighbor's barking dog, or a classic case of insomnia, sleep deprivation makes a dangerous driver.

Driver fatigue can happen when you had too little sleep the night before, when you've been driving through the night, or when you still have antihistamines or sleep medications in your bloodstream.

Driving when you are sleepy can have deadly consequences. Much like alcohol, fatigued driving involves a delayed reaction time, impaired judgement and erratic driving, and it can affect your ability to perform the most basic-driving tasks.

Signs of Driver Fatigue

If you only had a few hours' sleep the night before, you should know that driving would be unsafe. Sometimes though, the symptoms of fatigue creep up on us and we down coffee or an energy drink and ignore them.

Here are some of the warning signs to watch out for:

• Feeling tired
• Falling asleep at the wheel
• Rolling down windows to stay awake
• Forgetting where you are
• Not recalling the last few miles driven
• Stopping for coffee so you can stay awake
• Swerving or crossing the center lane

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, you could lose control of your vehicle.

What the Statistics Show

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), falling asleep at the wheel is responsible for approximately 100,000 crashes, 40,000 injuries, and over 1,500 fatalities each year. Of the traffic fatalities, about half of them occur at night – when people are more inclined to drive when tired.

If you are fatigued, ask someone else to drive, or take a nap. If you're planning a long road trip, leave extra time to pull over and rest or get a hotel room for the night.

If you were injured in an accident with a fatigued driver, contact a car accident lawyer!