Stop Crying Virus Wolf >>
<< Internet Filters Block Valuable Data, Too
 tdicon 


Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Aug 6th 2003 12:45am





Wake-Up Call For Drowsy Jersey Drivers

from the it's-the-law dept

For all those discussions about how bad driving while talking is, New Jersey has decided to take on one other major cause of accidents: driving while drowsy is now illegal in the Garden State. I remember, years back, learning about sleep deprivation in a psychology class I took, where the professor made it clear that driving while drowsy is even more dangerous than driving while drunk. Of course, unlike drunk driving, there's no Breathalyzer equivalent (the sleepalizer?) to test how "drowsy" a driver is. Thus, I don't really see how anyone could enforce such a law. The rule seems to be that it's illegal to drive if you haven't slept in 24 hours, and you can also face criminal charges if you're caught asleep at the wheel. Still sounds pretty tough to prove. However, the article includes some scary stats, including the fact that 17% of drivers surveyed claim they've fallen asleep at the wheel in the previous year. That number sounds ridiculously high.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..


If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1.  

    Trucker Alley

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 6th, 2003 @ 1:59am

    Shouldn't surprise you at all, given its location as an East Coast artery for I-95. If you grew up back East, you've heard the cliche about asking NJ residents "which exit do you live off of?" We can't have sleepy truckers squashing NJ-ites left and right.


    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Doctors

    identicon
    Glenn, Aug 6th, 2003 @ 7:31am

    My understanding is that doctors-to-be, as part of their training and residency, regularly do 24 hour or longer shifts. While I don't really envision a scenario where a whole bunch of doctors are ticketed/arrested for sleepy driving, you gotta wonder if the ruling would hold in that scenario.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: Doctors

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 6th, 2003 @ 8:00am

    What I want to know is, if it's not okay to merely drive while drowsy, why is it okay for a doctor to practice medicine in these marathon sessions while sleep-deprived?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Doctors

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 6th, 2003 @ 9:06am

    Its' ok for doctors because the AMA is one of the
    top donators to political candidates, and wields
    a lot of clout in governmental circles. The AMA
    can instill a lot of fear in pols.

    Your basic truck driving guy doesn't.

    Besides, I think just recently the AMA changed
    its attitude on the slave-driving residency
    programs, limiting time to 80 hours a week for
    interns. I don't know if this has taken effect county-wide yet or only in certain locales.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: Doctors

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 6th, 2003 @ 10:09am

    The 80-hour rule has been there for a long time, throughout the country. Enforcement is lax, however.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    traffic

    identicon
    jack, Apr 25th, 2008 @ 4:37am

    accidents is un avoiding thinks in today world bcz of heavy traffic. ================ jack Put The Message Where It Matters! WideCircles aka Wide Circles represents relevant, distributed, highly targeted and efficient internet word of mouth marketing using entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion using social network mediums such as blogs, forums, wikis and so on. http://widecircles.com

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Save me a cookie
  • Note: A CRLF will be replaced by a break tag (<br>), all other allowable HTML will remain intact
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>


Stop Crying Virus Wolf >>
<< Internet Filters Block Valuable Data, Too
 tdicon 

A word from our Sponsors...
Follow Techdirt
Flattr rss rss

Powered by Postrank

From the Techdirt Archive...
A word from our Sponsors...

Close

Email This