Sleepless in America

I think it would be too difficult to enforce an actual ban on driving drowsy since it would be very hard to measure. A person could simply deny a certain level of fatigue and short of expensive brain wave tests, there would be little way to verify the drowsiness. Also, so many people take medications that can potentially cause drowsiness, a chunck of the population would be at risk for not being able to ever drive. I think education is the best bet. Few people are aware of the serious dangers of driving while tired and if they had more knowledge of the danger, may plan better so that driving while fatigued can be avoided whenever possible.

Laws are helpful but they can only do so much when they are up against a strong culture that devalues the importance of sleep. In many medical specialties, such as surgery, sleep deprivation is seen as the norm, particularly for budding surgeons. It's seen as a normal part of the training process, and those who admit to being fatigued are sometimes viewed negatively.

I suspect that the cultural devalue of sleep plays a larger role in American society as well. Perhaps it clashes with our Puritan work ethic -- Americans work more hours than anybody in the world! We view sleep as a waste of time...or even worse, a sign of laziness -- when in fact its a vital component of mental and physical health.

If someone knowingly stays up for 24+ hours it should be allowed as a consideration showing lack of judgement. However, just being drowsy in and of itself should not be. Because we can't measure it. If someone in an accident says they were drowsy or the attending officer notices them drifting off, they should be sent for a sleep study, but the results of the study shouldn't be used punitively.

But even then, try *fixing* a sleep problem.

I have problems getting restful sleep. I can sleep for 16 hours and feel no more refreshed than if I slept for 16 minutes. I have been seeing sleep professionals about this for 10 years. 10 years. I had a good patch where my acupuncturist got me to a pretty good state - I was functional and could wake up before noon on weekends. But it took nearly losing my job, heavy medication to treat "symptoms" and about 2 years and 2 seemingly unrelated surgeries to figure out that I wasn't getting restful sleep. So diagnosis took over 2 years. Initial treatment took over 3 years. I was mostly steady for 3 years and now am declining again. I've had 2 inconclusive sleep studies - I don't have apnea, which is both a blessing and a curse because what the heck do I have?

I just had tonsillitis and my swollen tonsils ironically allowed me to breathe better in my sleep than normal. I felt better while sick with tonsillitis than I do otherwise. It turns out that tonsils can be a factor in non-restful sleep and NOT ONE SINGLE SLEEP PROFESSIONAL mentioned this to me in 10 YEARS.

But then, almost every doctor goes through that stupid, wasteful, and counterproductive period of hazing known as residency. They all think sleep deprivation makes you stronger. No wonder sleep problems are not taken seriously, or even thought of, by about 90% of medical professionals. I have no respect whatsoever for the training system that forces student doctors to stay awake and make life altering decisions for people on no sleep. It's worse than drowsy driving. It's institutionalized criminal negligence.

So yeah, I have some strong opinions. But that could be my lack of sleep talking. My most recent ENT doc thinks that my semi-obstructed airway makes it difficult enough for me to breathe that I don't rest well, but it's not so difficult that it shows up as apnea. He thinks he can fix it. I hope he's worth his new BMW. Because I've had 2 weeks in the last 12 years when I woke up feeling rested. But I have never caused a car accident because I'm hypervigilant about driving or I get off the road.

Sometimes we need a law to help us keep the roads safe , but sometimes a mothers loss turns into a crusade to victimize others.

The man who had fallen asleep at the wheel that caused an accident that killed her daughter was found not guilty.
So what do you do next? wear a button and fix the world. But at what cost. The law she nagged NJ lawmakers to enact was meant for people who knowingly stay at the wheel who have been awake for I believe 24 hours.
Unfortunatly not all drowsy drivers fit that bill. Anxiety , traffic , carbon monoxide , borish passenger , constant bright lights and other simple causes have made people feel drowsy at the wheel.
If you should de involved in an accident with a fatality , only a slight hint of drowsiness could land you in jail for manslaugther.
Pehaps while asked by an officer and you cant recall what happened as is the case in ACCIDENTS, the wrong words could have you wondering who the hell is maggie and this damn law.

Mothers! accidents happen, yes we want to blame the world for it , the answer isnt passing laws in your dead daughters name.

Im waiting for the day when a fatal accident is caused by a guy scratching his groin and we outlaw drivers with jock itch calling it sally rotten crotch law

being in a very intense college program, i know all too well the effects of sleep deprivation...unfortunately i have no choice. it's either don't sleep or don't pass. i sometimes go 2 or 3 days straight without sleeping and then eventually have to drive back home. this wouldn't be that big of a deal if i didn't live an hour away from school (in good traffic).
there are solutions.. find an empty classroom and put your head down for a while, make friends who live close to the school whos houses you can stay at once in a while or even if you can nap on their couch for an hour or two.. they'd probly love the company.
the bottom line is...i've fallen asleep behind the wheel far too many times on my drive to and from school (8 or 9 times in one night), and i've started to ask myself "is it worth killing myself or some other innocent person in a car accident just to get to the class i'll be too tired to listen to anyways?" in most cases the answer is no. so why do i do it?
as i type this i'm getting more and more tired and i'm already dreading my drive home tonight.
is it that the work load is too intense? partially.. but i know i need to know my stuff if i plan on getting out there in the real world and working in my field. and it's not like i go out and party.. i spent my entire first year cooped up in this school and every day i'm on the verge of a mental and emotional break down (as is everyone else in my program). We don't go out, we don't slack off, the work is time consuming, but it has to be done. So why is it that we torture ourselves and sleep so little? Because to keep up with the demands of this chaotic society we need to. There's no other option for students these days.
[People may doubt when i say that my priorities are indeed on my schoolwork, so as an example i'll share my 19th birthday with you. One might think that on the day you can legally drink that you would go out and party..i spent my 19th birthday alone in a grungy basement studio at my school working on a drafting assignment crying my eyes out and then on my half hour walk home in the cold i lugged home 20 pounds of equipment at 3 in the morning, which is not a fun walk alone that late at night. Continued homework in bed until I collapsed, and walked back to school for my 8am class later that morning.]
anyways, i thought i'd share this, i don't have time to edit or re-read it, so excuse that it's not cleverly versed or written particularily well, but it's a basic thought process, and i'm sure you'll manage to understand it.
gotta keep homeworking and head home for a nap.
ps. if it's after midnight and you are reading this, do us all a favour and go to bed. g'night.
<3 karly

Wake up, flight crews!

Date: December 21, 2009
Type: Media Article

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Source: www.latimes.com
Author: Tiffany Hawk
Airlines are increasingly pushing pilots and flight attendants into longer hours and less sleep.

As we cram into airplanes this holiday season, there is an aspect of air travel that we're likely to be putting out of our minds -- pilots asleep at the yoke and flight attendants so tired their mental states can be likened to a drunken stupor.

Most Americans are protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which since 1938 has limited the workday to eight hours and the workweek to 40 hours. Airlines, which are governed by the Federal Aviation Administration, are exempt. They can push their workers up to 20 hours per day, without bearing the cost of overtime pay, which discourages such practice.

The toll this can take on pilots has been in the news since a Northwest Airlines flight overshot its destination two months ago. But the rest of the flight crew is also suffering.

As a former flight attendant, I fought two in-flight fires, calmed thousands of passengers through mechanical failures and assisted in more medical emergencies than I can recall. I have also fallen asleep standing up. I've snuck naps in the lavatory, sitting on the toilet with a dirty airline pillow wedged between my shoulder and the sink. I've been outright incapable of figuring the simple arithmetic required for liquor accounting. I have asked a passenger what he wanted to drink and then stuck a bag of pretzels into a cup before handing it to him.

This level of exhaustion is dangerous. Several sleep studies have shown that 17 hours of wakefulness is equivalent to a blood-alcohol level of 0.05%. Between 19 and 24 hours of wakefulness, that number goes up to 0.10% -- over the legal limit for driving in every U.S. state and considerably over the FAA restriction of 0.04%. Chronically sleeping only four to six hours per night is as harmful to cognitive performance as missing two entire nights of sleep.

For crew and passenger safety, the FAA mandates that flight attendants work a maximum of 14 hours, extendable to 20 hours, with minimum rest periods of nine hours, reducible to eight hours. Pilots have slightly different restrictions -- 16 hours maximum and up to 18 hours if necessary.

These guidelines were intended as extreme outer limits, and it was expected that they'd be reined in by collective bargaining agreements. But after years of losses, cutbacks and contract renegotiations have made long shifts and short recoveries standard operating procedure at too many airlines, from national and international carriers to regional companies.

For flight crews, an eight-hour rest period begins 15 minutes after "door open" on landing to the next day's push-back from the gate. It's ludicrous: Flight crews must be at the airport an hour before flight time -- to check in, go through a security screening, get briefed, board the plane and even pass out pre-departure beverages to first-class passengers. But all of that work is counted as "rest." When you take into account transportation to and from a hotel, which could be 30 or more minutes away, or finding something to eat at the end of a "day," crew members may only have an opportunity for four or five hours' sleep.

Contrast that with the Air Force, which, despite being at war, must give its air crews (including flight attendants and those performing flight attendant duties) a minimum of 12 hours' rest.

Of course, not all airlines push their crews to the limit. For example, Southwest Airlines, year after year the most profitable carrier, has the highest-paid flight attendants and pilots in the industry. For flight attendants, it offers a reasonable 10.5 hour maximum "duty day," which can be pushed to 12.5 hours; pilots' maximum "duty day" is 13 hours, which can be pushed to 15 hours.

Why don't flight crew members simply migrate to the best airlines? I can answer that for flight attendants: Partly, it's an issue of seniority. If someone leaves one airline after, say, 15 years, they will lose that seniority at a new airline, which not only means a pay cut but also several years of being on call 24 hours a day. But mostly it's because they dream of the good old days, which in the airline industry means pre-9/11, when the industry was in better shape and such brutal schedules were the exception not the rule. Like anyone in an abusive relationship, they are living in denial. And a bit of fear. If they demand more, managers threaten, the airline will go under.

If an airline worries it can't afford to hire more flight attendants should schedules require safe doses of sleep, we should remind its shareholders that the company could get hundreds of them for the price of one chief executive officer. Though rested, the CEO won't be much help when your Airbus dives into the Hudson.

Tiffany Hawk spent five years as a flight attendant at United Airlines and Virgin America before becoming a travel writer. Her monthly travel column appears in Coast magazine.

thanks for the comment
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Great Law Group

A good start would be employer accountability. Currently, bars are held accountable if a patron drives home drunk and someone gets hurt.

Certainly seems logical to me that people who are required to work ridiculous hours (including doctors and medical students) should have their employers held accountable when someone is hurt because of that.

Great documentary about the film industry at www.whoneedssleep.com (I am in no way affiliated with them; just think it is a great cause.)