Getting at least eight hours of sleep every night is important especially for those who are driving on the road. According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, people who only sleep for one to two hours have a higher risk of car accidents.

The lead researcher of the study, Brian Tefft, said that "while we do not think anybody would be surprised to learn that driving while extremely sleep-deprived increases a driver's risk of being involved in a crash - this admittedly is rather intuitive - we were surprised to find detectable increase in crash risk when a driver had slept even just one hour less than the seven hours recommended by sleep experts."

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The researchers collected data about 7,234 drivers involved in 4,571 crash accidents from six in the morning to midnight, recorded between 2005 and 2007 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey reveals a lot of information including the duration of the driver's sleep 24 hours before the crash.

According to the analysis, less than four hours of sleep increases a driver's risk of getting in a car crash by over 11 times while drivers who sleep for four to five hours have 4.3 times higher risk than those who sleep for seven hours and above. Further, drivers who only had five to six hours of sleep have a 1.9 times higher risk while those who had six to seven hours of sleep are 1.3 times likely to be involved in a vehicle crash.

The Director of Traffic Safety Advocacy and Research, Jake Nelson, said that "if you have not slept seven or more hours in a given 24 hour period, you really shouldn't behind the wheel of a car."

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that more than one in three Americans lack sleep. This has been linked not only to vehicular accidents but also to depression and weight gain.

The authors said that their finding that lack of sleep increases the risk for car crash is circumstantial because the quality of sleep before driving was not considered in the analysis.