Cambs Police attended second highest number of sleep-related road collisions in the UK
New data reveals Cambridgeshire Police responded to the second highest number of UK emergency call-outs involving drivers who fell asleep at the wheel, or admitted they were sleep-deprived following a collision.
Between the years 2020 and 2025, the force responded to 1,515 reports of sleep-related road incidents.
The majority of these (1,117) involved a road offense being committed, while 229 were recorded as ‘damage only’, and 169 recorded as ‘injury only’.
Only Hertfordshire Police attended more such incidents overall – with 2,687 recorded over the same five year period.
The data has been revealed by MattressNextDay – which sent a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to all emergency services in the UK, querying the number of call-outs linked to sleep deprivation or fatigue between 2020 and 2025.
A spokesperson for the company said: “As we approach autumn, darker mornings and evenings increase the risk of fatigue-related driving incidents, with searches for “why does driving make you tired?” soaring by 5,000% in the last month.”
The FOI request asked police forces to reveal the total number of incidents they attended “where sleep, fatigue or driving while tired was recorded as a factor for each”.
Across Cambridgeshire, 2024 was the worst year for sleep-related road accidents – with the police attending 310 in total.
Moreover, recent DVLA data (as of June 2025) shows that Cambridgeshire has the 27th highest number of drivers with a sleep-related condition, at 2,551. Sleep-related conditions recorded in the data include narcolepsy and sleep apnea.
Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue was placed 22 on the list for how many sleep-related incidents each fire service in the UK attended between 2020-2025 – recording 107 over that period. These included 30 such incidents caused by “careless handling - due to sleep or unconsciousness”, and nine sleep-related cooking mishaps which caused a blaze.