Fatigue for sure. There you are on autopilot as you say, and then something happens and - Guess what? - your brain is simply NOT WORKING.
I am heading for the time when I just won't drive at night.
I would say Fatigue and Driver inattention would be the biggest causes of crashes in my area (South Canterbury). A significant proportion of crashes involve Tourist as well.
Only a couple of the crash reports that I have read over the last 2.5 years specifically single out excessive speed as a causitive factor.
We do get a lot of confused tourists. Often they are Asian and have never seen an empty road.
personally, I think 50% of the accidents we see are are fatigue / inattention. We do see some that are pure speed related though.
Commenting by HaloScan
