Senior Steven Poklop said he sets four alarms so he can be at school before 7 a.m. On the way to Early Bird Physical Education, he said he turns on the radio to keep himself awake behind the wheel.

Poklop said when he wakes up he wants to go back to sleep, and then it is hard for him to get out of bed. When he gets out of bed, he said he turns on his Keurig and brews a cup of coffee before leaving for school.

But he said the caffeine kick fails to keep him awake before he gets behind the wheel.

“I’m still pretty tired [driving in the morning], so I guess you could say I’m a little distracted,” Poklop said.

Studies show too little sleep leads to automobile accidents.

James E. Gangwisch, assistant professor in the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, said, “If you’re deprived of enough sleep, it’s equivalent to being drunk.”

Earlier high school start times lead to a higher number of teen crashes, a study published in September by the American Association of Sleep Medicine concluded. According to the study, teens beginning high school from 7:00-7:59 a.m. were involved in more crashes than teens from high schools starting from 8:00-8:59 a.m.

Poklop said one snowy morning this winter, he fishtailed his car on the way to school because he was a little tired.

“I suppose if I had been fully awake I could [have] avoided the incident,” said Poklop. “Maybe I would have consciously thought to drive slower.”

Gangwisch said he prioritizes sleep, but demanding schedules make a healthy sleep pattern difficult.

Poklop said he usually sleeps less the night before a test or a project is due.

“The next day I’m completely out of it, almost falling asleep in class, and [I] have difficulty concentrating,” Poklop said.

According to Michelle Short, a research fellow at the Centre for Sleep Research at the University of South Australia, lack of sleep has a “widespread effect on both physiological and psychological functioning.”

Sleep deprivation, as it relates to driving and school behavior, “has a detrimental effect on a person’s ability to sustain attention.”

Short said a partial solution to teenagers’ lack of sleep lies with schools and policy makers.

“There is overwhelming evidence that shows that later school start times result in better rested students who perform better at school and have fewer car accidents,” said Short. “Students won’t be driving at a time when their body clock and alertness is at its lowest point.”

In schools with later start times, she said teens still go to bed around the same time as schools with earlier start times.

“It turns out that teens tend to keep the same bedtime and just get up later, and thus get more sleep,” Short said.