Falling asleep at the wheel normally dangerous driving, appeal court rules
A driver who falls asleep at the wheel will, in the absence of special circumstances, be regarded as driving dangerously, the Criminal Appeal Court has ruled.
Lord Justice Clerk Carloway, Lord Brodie and Lord Drummond Young dismissed the appeal against conviction of Helen Alexander, whose vehicle crossed a central reservation and collided with an oncoming car, causing damage and injury. A plea of guilty to careless driving had not been accepted by the Crown.
The court heard that the appellant had got up at 6.30am, had worked a shift as a community staff nurse from 8am to 12.30pm, as on the previous day, had gone to visit her mother for about three hours and was driving home at about 5pm when the accident occurred. The sheriff found that she “had been lethargic and lacking energy as a result of menopausal symptoms”; there was a specific finding that, “by falling asleep while driving”, the appellant’s driving fell far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver.
Delivering the opinion of the court, Lord Carloway said that an act of driving that was deemed to be dangerous still required to be voluntary. The actions of a driver who was asleep could not be said to be voluntary; "However, the act of falling asleep, in the absence of special circumstances, is a voluntary act and, when it occurs in the context of driving, will usually be regarded as dangerous. That is because drivers who fall asleep: 'are always aware that they are feeling sleepy,... there is always a feeling of profound sleepiness and they reach a point where they are fighting sleep'."
While the quotation was from the English case of Wilson (2011), Lord Carloway observed that "it coincides with human experience". A jury was entitled to infer that a driver, prior to falling asleep, was aware of doing so and ignored the obvious dangers.
He added that while there might be special circumstances that made the act of falling asleep involuntary, a driver who was aware of a medical condition and could foresee that they might fall asleep, would be precluded from relying on that condition.