Asleep at the Wheel
An interesting article was posted on the National Sleep Federation website. It was amazing to me that someone who is smart enough to receive a Nobel prize is not smart enough to know either how to drive or when to drive.
John Schrieffer, (age 74) professor at Florida State University, was sentenced to felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence when driving over 100 miles an hour and he fell asleep and killed someone and injured 7. By the way he was driving on a suspended license.
This obviously brings up the topic of sleepiness and driving however this is not the best example since this 74 year old gentleman obviously has issues with speed. What I want to highlight here is that driving sleepy is quite dangerous and can have some serious consequences. In NJ there is now a law -- "Maggie's law"-- which allows for increased sentencing and punishment for killing someone when falling asleep while driving. Prior to the law a young woman (Maggie) was killed, by someone who had been awake for 36 hours and all he got was a $200 fine.
There are several hard questions to ask here:
How can we reliably measure sleepiness? Can we do it real time, to catch people in the act? Finally, are there degrees of sleepiness that are OK when driving?
Related Topics: WebMD Member Story: Asleep at the Wheel, Driving Dangerously by Driving Drowsy, Older Drivers: The Car Key Decision
John Schrieffer, (age 74) professor at Florida State University, was sentenced to felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence when driving over 100 miles an hour and he fell asleep and killed someone and injured 7. By the way he was driving on a suspended license.
This obviously brings up the topic of sleepiness and driving however this is not the best example since this 74 year old gentleman obviously has issues with speed. What I want to highlight here is that driving sleepy is quite dangerous and can have some serious consequences. In NJ there is now a law -- "Maggie's law"-- which allows for increased sentencing and punishment for killing someone when falling asleep while driving. Prior to the law a young woman (Maggie) was killed, by someone who had been awake for 36 hours and all he got was a $200 fine.
There are several hard questions to ask here:
How can we reliably measure sleepiness? Can we do it real time, to catch people in the act? Finally, are there degrees of sleepiness that are OK when driving?
Related Topics: WebMD Member Story: Asleep at the Wheel, Driving Dangerously by Driving Drowsy, Older Drivers: The Car Key Decision
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