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.
Comments on “Wake-Up Call For Drowsy Jersey Drivers”
Trucker Alley
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.
Doctors
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.
Re: Doctors
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?
Re: Re: Doctors
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.
Re: Re: Re: Doctors
The 80-hour rule has been there for a long time, throughout the country. Enforcement is lax, however.
traffic
accidents is un avoiding thinks in today world bcz of heavy traffic.
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jack
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