States crack down on 'driving while drowsy'

[Judi Lynn]

States crack down on 'driving while drowsy'
The Associated PressPublished: February 16, 2007

ALBANY, New York: U.S. drivers who fall asleep at the wheel are the latest target of state lawmakers who want to make roads more safe.

Driving-while-drowsy is a deadly and underreported cause of accidents, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found. Sleepiness increased by four to six times the driver's risk of a crash or near-crash, the agency said in its April report with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

Some lawmakers are paying attention. So far this year, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky and Massachusetts have introduced bills to fight sleepy drivers. But New York has been the busiest, introducing more than a dozen drowsy driving bills since 2003.

The latest New York bill would define driving while drowsy as driving without having slept in 24 hours. The first offense would carry a $500 (€381) fine, but further convictions and more serious accidents could carry sentences of up to three years in prison.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/16/america/NA-GEN-US-Driving-Drowsy.php

[HockeyMom]

1. I work the Midnight Shift

Driving while drowsy? :rofl:

[no_hypocrisy]

2. How do you scientifically prove for trial that a defendant has been

without sleep for 24 hours versus 23 hours?

[FiveGoodMen]

3. I think it's time to put a one-year moratorium on ALL legislation

This is just getting nuts.

How are they going to prove when you slept last?

[halobeam]

8. well, for the security of the American people, they should be able to put camera's

in the bedroom. :sarcasm: Of course! That's the only way they could prove it. This is ridiculous

[Bushies gotta go]

4. as a traffic safety expert

I have to say I agree with any effort to combat drowsy drivers.... BUT I do not see any of this as enforceable. However tattered, our Constitution still madates that the state must prove their case.

It is impossible to regulate what constitutes "tired" unless and until they find some type of scientific method such as Nystagmic gaze.

[halobeam]

9. agreed.

The thing is, there are many accidents with people falling asleep at the wheel. My 18 yr old totaled his car that way. He's fine and no one else was hurt thank God.

They just can not monitor people to this degree. To prove it would be near impossible, if not incredibly expensive..

They have rules for over the road truck drivers, for instance, that impose mandatory break/nap times and most have to comply with time cards filled out... this is what I understand. It makes sense to do this, and is a bit easier to enforce because they answer to their dispatches and there's a record of their time spent...

but personal time spent for private citizens? inconceivable.

[MadHound]

22. Actually it wouldn't be all that complicated nor expensive

And the beauty part of it is that the car buyer will actually pay to be monitored.

There is already a product on the market, an earpiece device that is designed to sound an alarm whenever you head tilts down to your chest X number of degrees. All that is needed from there is sending the signal to the car's computer, which would then activate a light or someother public warning on the exterior. Cars are already recording large quantities of data for latter download from their computer, this would simply be another piece of data, one that could be used in court.

[Bushies gotta go]

33. You are talking apples and oranges

You speak of the "black box", the on-board data collectors which record various pieces of information about the mechanical aspects of the vehicle. Sometimes that information includes speed, sometimes it records speed changes during a collision. But for the most part, that information is proprietary. In other words, no one but the manufacturer knows or has the ability to read it. Currently, only GM and Ford have systems where someone outside the company can determine the data. GM is quite complete while Ford's data tells you next to nothing.

We are not talking of a later determination that a person was tired. We are talking about a police officer on a traffic stop determining that a person is too fatigued to drive and has violated a law. Big difference. It is left up to the opinion of a police officer, who visually inspects a driver for signs of DUI or DUID. Now they can tell a person is "lacking sleep"? How, by appearance?

I admit, I very often drive much longer than I should. I travel a lot and it is not uncommon for me to work a full day and then try and drive 500 miles after that. I might drive until I can't see straight. It is wrong but I'm like the drunk who thinks "I'm fine". It was once pointed out to me, while watching a bunch of my professional peers jaywalk on a busy downtown street during a break from the classroom, that even though all of us safety experts knew better, we don't heed our own advice.

All states already have laws on the books regarding violations that a tired driver usually makes. From improper lane usage, failure to maintain a single lane, following too closely or even just your basic "careless driving". These are all laws that rely upon the evidence of observation. An officer can testify that he observed a vehicle run off the road, wander from lane to lane. Any of these are easily citable and provable. It is redundant and useless to throw a new law, one that is next to impossible to enforce, on to the books.

Not to mention it is really just one more step into big brotherhood. While truckers are required to carry up to the minute log books on their activities, does this mean that eventually all drivers will have to? And there is so much cheating with trucker's log books (like multiple logs), it would be utterly impossible to make sure all drivers don't cheat.

[w4rma]

37. Why would I put something in my car that could, potentially, be used against me in court?

I'd disable that BS. And anyone else with half a brain would disable it, also.

[Double T]

5. If 'WE' give these legislators adequate time, THEY will legislate enough laws.......

to put 'US' ALL in jail.

[kestrel91316]

6. They're working on it. With a little "selective enforcement" they

will just lock up (or disappear) anyone who is deemed to be insufficiently christofascist.

[Double T]

7. Amen.

[Vidar]

15. Texas used to have a part-time legislature for appropriate pay..

That was the only thing I liked about Texas government. The bastard have less time to do damage.

[derby378]

10. Some of you may laugh, but it happened to me

I've fallen asleep at the wheel while driving. It was 2am, I was on the highway out of Tyler headed to Dallas, and I experienced the phenomenon known as "micro-sleeping." No matter what you do to stay awake, no matter how hot or cold you make it, no matter how loud you play the music, no matter how many times you slap yourself or throw water in your face, you just can't fight it...and...your...eyes...gently...close...

I was very, very lucky. I jolted awake just in time to catch myself drifting towards the shoulder, and I made it to the nearest rest stop on pure adrenaline. I parked my little car in between a couple of 18-wheelers, put the seat back, and caught a little nap.

It happened again a few years ago with ginbarn in the car, despite my efforts to never let it happen again. She finally persuaded me to pull off at a rest stop, and let me sleep for an hour and a half. It felt like only 15 minutes to me.

The reason this is so serious is because a friend of mine from East Texas had the same thing happen to him, but he didn't wake up even when his car ran off the highway and plowed into a ditch. He woke up in the hospital. By then, he had lost an eye and broke several bones. In a way, though, he was lucky. People have died from wrecks caused by micro-sleep.

When you feel a fit of micro-sleep come upon you, nothing will ease it except for sleep itself. Find a rest stop, or just pull in someplace where you won't bother anyone and vice versa. Throw your jacket over your body and ease the seat back. Sleep.

[susanna]

23. I'm not laughing at all.

I have to ask: has your friend been tested for narcolepsy? I only ask because narcolepsy often initially presents itself as microsleep incidents. By definition, microsleep is only a few seconds. A severe crash should bring someone up from that sort of "sleep."

In my case, I know someone with a severe form of narcolepsy who did the exact same thing where it was passed off as microsleep (a serious accident, that is). She was not diagnosed until shortly after we went on a road trip together. One morning - after she had gotten a full nights' sleep - we took off. About an hour into our drive, she began drifting into the lane of an oncoming semi (two-lane farm road). I had two seconds to notice she was asleep at the wheel. I grabbed the wheel from the passenger side, and was able to get beyond the truck. I then spoke to her and she abruptly awoke. It was terrifying. It happened a couple more times that morning. I finally got her to give up the keys, turned the car around, and drove home. I begged her to get tested for the problem I had witnessed. She did, and her results were completely conclusive: narcolepsy - severe form.

Now I am kind of an advocate for sleep disorder testing if someone shows the first sign - because I can tell you for certain it is not something to take lightly. It impacts not only driving, but everyday, simple tasks - climbing a staircase, cooking food, etc. It can be deadly if undiagnosed and untreated.

Most folks are just commonly sleep-deprived, but there are a small percentage who have a serious disorder. For the safety of everyone, folks with more serious symptoms - accidents and the like - should rule out that possibility if they can possibly do so, IMHO.

[Deja Q]

24. I am a narcoleptic and before I got treated, I nearly died in an accident.

Needless to say, I've done a lot of things different over the last 15 years - and I still have to be careful.

I think those saying "They will legislate all of us into jaaaaaail!" are paranoid; sleep deprivation and related sleep disorders are real. And your comment as to what to do about it is a good one. Now if only more employers would be understanding...

[susanna]

35. Self-deleted. I think I misunderstood the previous comment. Sorry. n/t

[all.of.me]

32. if you need to sleep, your body just does it.

it is not voluntary. i am glad you are ok. several times, i have caught myself starting to doze while driving. it's a scary feeling. sadly, most people do not know their own signals for need to sleep (or eat or drink), so they just plow along.

the danger of driving while tired is very real, but there is no way a law about it would do any good. people need to monitor themselves, not have every action looked over by big brother.

[Mist]

11. Nutty laws = opportunities for "revenue enhancement." nt

[regnaD kciN]

12. Of course, there won't be any laws...

...against employers who keep people on round-the-clock "crunch time" shifts, thus making sure they can't get any sleep. :grr:

Don't get me wrong -- driving while half-awake is a very serious problem. I've had it happen to me on several occasions. Usually, it happened during such a crunch-time at my former employer, where I had to come in around 9 (after braving 90 minutes in rush-hour traffic), work until I had to dash home at five (another 90 minutes of rush-hour traffic) to pick up my wife from the bus stop and my kid from daycare, drive them home, drive back to work (this time, since it wasn't rush-hour, the commute only took 60 minutes), work until 2 or 3 in the morning, drive back home (another 60 minutes) and be ready to get up at 6:30 or 7 to do it all again. Repeat for several 7-day work weeks (no weekends off during crunch time, of course, although I could just go in at 9 and stay there until 3 in the morning in a straight block those days), and it eventually becomes hard enough to tell, while on the road, if you're awake or nodding off.

Fortunately, I don't have that problem anymore...because that employer canned almost all of us on that team, because we had a "bad attitude" and weren't willing to work long/hard enough, and thus were "cheating the company." :eyes: (Of course, he shouldn't complain -- he certainly made enough profits off us to make an even larger-than-usual contribution to the Bush re-election effort that year. :grr: )

[Deja Q]

25. The solution to toilet film employers: We all become our own businesses...

And if we all did that right now, the big companies would lose a shitload of revenue.

[kath]

13. Uh, so how would I have gotten home when I was an intern, after being up

all night on call every third night??

[Porcupine]

27. That should be a crime too. Treating patients on no sleep

is just as criminal and life threatening as driving a semi on no sleep. Of course when a sleepy doctor kills somebody there's no big pile of twisted metal to point to.

The Air Force and NASA have done study after study that definitively prove that there are unacceptable performance drops after 16 hours without sleep, simple "rest" does not bring the performance back to premium levels.

How the medical establishment manages to get off ignoring the bulk of scientific evidence is beyond me but they keep doing it. It's insanity.

[kath]

36. very good point - and I totally agree with you.

[DemoTex]

14. Even the FAA airline crew rest requirements don't mandate sleep; just rest periods.

It is up to the individual crew member to determine his/her fitness to fly.

[Malva Zebrina]

16. Over time, some thirty five years of work as a nurse

I worked many a night shift, and many times a double shift when staffing was horribly short. I often drove home in a fugue state and collapsed on my bed without doing anything at all like a shower etc. because I had to care for two children and get them off to school-- but sometimes was so overtired and so revved up by forcing myself to remain alert on the job that I could not even sleep at all once I got home. One time I drove in this hypnotic state on the wrong road home and never realized how far off I was from the road home until I was jolted by driving over railroad tracks that did not strike a familiar memory and caused me to realize the error. I was far off the track home and had to drive and additional half hour to get back home.

[AIJ Alom]

17. I guess Jack Bauer will not be saving New York anytime soon.n/t

[Solon]

18. OK, I don't get all the posts that make it seem like laws like this are stupid...

No offense, but I think that if you are putting others at unnecessary risk while driving, regardless of the habit(Sleeplessness, drinking, cellphones), then you should be penalized for those bad habits.

[lligrd]

28. Perhaps It Is The Fact That

everyone of us would be in jail if laws like this became actuality. And who would be supporting us then?

[lligrd]

29. Carbon Monoxide Is Known To Cause Drowsiness

So anybody stuck in rush hour in my state would be at risk.

[truthisfreedom]

19. Unenforceable.

There's no "test" for when a person last slept. This would make insomniacs unlicensable.

[donco6]

20. I'd be happy if they passed a law against . . .

driving while stupid.

[lligrd]

30. Lets Start With A Law Against Legislating While Stupid

or "deciding" while stupid. lol

[donco6]

31. I'd vote for that!

:toast:

[yellowcanine]

21. I've got news for them. There are lots of drowsy drivers who have slept within the past 24 hours.

This is not something that lends itself to legislation. Cite people when they have at fault accidents. Hike their insurance rates. But don't pass unenforceable laws.

[lligrd]

26. Naps At Work Might Help

Guess we need a law to mandate them too.

[KansDem]

34. OK, now that we got this problem licked, how about tackling "voting while drowsy?"

That might explain the results of the last couple of elections...