Blood test which can spot extreme drowsiness at the wheel ‘to be ready within two years’

Drivers will soon be able to be tested on the spot to make sure they are not too tired to hit the road.

Researchers think such technology — similar to breath analyzers used to catch drunk drivers — may be just five years away.

Blood tests could be ready even faster, increasing the likelihood that motorists who have been taken to hospital after an accident will be tested for sleep deprivation and for alcohol and drugs at the same time.

Experts say now is the time to tackle drowsy driving, where fatigue is to blame for thousands of accidents each year.

Getting behind the wheel after less than five hours of sleep may be just as dangerous as driving under the influence or the influence of drugs, research suggests.

Ministers are not currently considering adopting the latest technology in the UK.

However, Department for Transport (DfT) bosses insisted it “will always spot new ideas to make our roads safer.”

Drowsy driving tests, once proven accurate, could help finally legislate against tired drivers who have caused accidents.

There are currently no laws in Britain to ban drowsy driving.

But a tired driver who kills someone can be charged with death by dangerous driving or death by careless driving.

The key to securing a prosecution is agreeing on a threshold to indicate fatigue or the minimum amount of sleep a motorist needs to drive safely.

This would be comparable to the 0.05 per cent for alcohol in many countries, including Australia and Scotland, and 0.08 per cent for the rest of the UK.

Work on the tests is funded by the Office of Road Safety, the Australian equivalent of DfT.

Professor Clare Anderson, an associate professor of psychology at Monash University, who is working on the tests, explained The protector: ‘If you look at the big killers on the road, alcohol is one of them, speeding is another and fatigue is one of them.

“But even though the solution to fatigue is quite simple, which is to get more sleep, our ability to cope is compromised.”

This is “because we don’t have the tools to control it like we do with alcohol,” she added.

Her team has found five biomarkers in blood that can detect whether someone has been awake for 24 hours or more.

Preliminary tests show that this method can be up to 90 percent accurate in practice.

However, more research is needed to validate and improve the technology before it is rolled out.

For example, it is not yet able to quantify how much sleep someone has actually had.

However, the basic blood tests could still be ready within two years, Professor Anderson claimed.

Portable roadside tests will take longer because sensors and devices to detect the biomarkers have yet to be developed.

Fellow researcher Professor Shantha Rajaratnam, also from Monash University, told the Guardian that ‘with the right investment to be able to scale this up, I think we will be able to implement these biomarker-based tests within five years’.

In the UK it is estimated that one fifth of all accidents are caused by driver fatigue.

But charities say the actual total could be much higher.

According to the British road safety organization Break, one in eight drivers has also admitted to falling asleep at the wheel.

A tired driver who kills someone can be charged with death by dangerous driving or death by careless driving.

Professional drivers of goods are required to keep logbooks and record working and rest times in the UK.

Many commercial fleets also use event data recorders, which police can study in the event of an accident.

It comes after research last month suggested that five hours of sleep might be the “line in the sand,” in terms of a threshold.

Researchers found that drivers with less than this were twice as likely to be involved in a crash than well-rested individuals.

The risk decreased with more sleep, according to the study published in the journal Nature and science of sleep.

Meanwhile, alcohol-related road accidents have declined in recent decades due to the introduction and enforcement of limits on the concentration of alcohol in the blood while driving, scientists said.

Sonya Hurt, managing director of the Road Safety Trust, said: ‘Driver fatigue is an important and serious problem.

Government statistics show that in 2021, 467 people were killed or seriously injured in collisions with fatigue noted as a contributing factor.

Therefore, any work to reduce the impact of sleep deprivation is welcome as we strive to improve road safety and save lives.