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> Please don't get behind the wheel if you're drowsy. I know two people with the issue that GP is talking about, and it's not what you're talking about. They'

> Please don't get behind the wheel if you're drowsy. I know two people with the issue that GP is talking about, and it's not what you're talking about. They're perfectly alert when they get behind the wheel. They get drowsy on longer drives like 1hr+, which is why any time we do road trips I drive for them. And all that 'pull over and take a power nap' bullshit doesn't work. It's not grounded in any science to start with. I know both have tried coffee, breaks, stopping and taking a walk, etc. Of all those things, they said taking a nap is actually the worst because when they wake up they feel even more tired. So their choices are: have someone else drive them, don't drive beyond a 1hr distance range, or deal with the drowsiness. You can imagine how sometimes life just forces them into #3 even though both are keenly aware of their issue and do their best to mitigate it. Tech to detect when they phase out and save their life is absolutely the correct way to go.

joosters 6y ago
If it's dangerous for you to drive, don't drive. It's as simple as that. If you can't stay alert enough for more than an hour, don't drive for more than an hour. If people think that #3 is acceptable, they should never be allowed to drive a car, for everyone else's protection.
- missosoup 6y ago
  That's not how real life works. It's dangerous for everyone to drive and in the future manual driving will be as legal as riding horses on highways is today. People do potentially deadly risk reward calculus all the time. And of all potentially deadly things that people regularly do to crack down on, this one would have a pretty huge negative ROI for society. This issue impacts a non-trivial percentage of the population. You can't tell them all to change jobs or move their houses to be within whatever travel time limit. This purist notion of 'they should never be allowed to drive a car, for everyone else's protection' crumbles at the most trivial examination when you consider that you're talking about leaving millions of people jobless or in significantly worse quality of life conditions, while also completely reshuffling the housing markets and zoning. And even then, sometimes events will come up that force them to take that chance regardless, such as family emergencies. Rather than this purist isolated-logic bullshit that would probably crash the economy if seriously enforced because you have absolutely failed to consider the first and second order effects of what you're suggesting, we actually have a viable tech solution instead. I'm going to guess that most people who share this viewpoint are either high income earners living in a bubble who don't know what real life is like for most of the population, or are logical purists looking at this issue in isolation and not accounting for what life is like for most of the population. Life for most of the population is working paycheck to paycheck at whatever job you can get in order to make ends meet and keep your kids fed, and living in whatever housing you can get that doesn't make it impossible to get enough sleep to physically keep living due to long commute times. Being prevented from driving would absolutely destroy most affected families. You're going to do a lot more damage to society by preventing all those affected from driving than by doing nothing and letting it contribute to a small percentage of the road toll, which in itself is an insignificant percentage of the total death toll. Which is why every country on the planet has done nothing more drastic than awareness campaigns, despite being aware of this issue. Really, this is where this entire discussion becomes moot. Fatigue and microsleep as a cause of road fatalities are a well studied issue that every developed nation is aware of and has done the calculus on. And not a single one of them decided to ban those affected from driving, because the calculus of that policy results in a massive net COST, not gain. And that calculus shifts even further now that we have fairly cheap car technology available to mitigate the issue. When you think through all this, the only conclusion is 'ban affected people from driving' is moronic and does significantly more harm than good. tl;dr: you'll save more lives by replacing a single coal power plant with renewable energy than by implementing your policy. And you won't destroy the lives of millions of people and potentially crash the economy in the process. And there's already a viable solution on market that mitigates it almost entirely anyway. Pick your battles.
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    This purist notion of 'they should never be allowed to drive a car, for everyone else's protection' crumbles at the most trivial examination when you consider that you're talking about leaving millions of people jobless or in significantly worse quality of life conditions You contend that there are millions of people who knowingly drive while tired enough to fall asleep at the wheel and with a history of doing so? If so, I contend that your argument is contrived and your claim is unrealistic. Most people do not and would not drive while so tired that they knew they were likely to fall asleep while doing so. For a start, such a pattern of behaviour would be suicidal. Statistically, there would be far more nasty accidents due to tiredness than actually happen. In reality, only a tiny proportion of people drive while so tired that they might actually fall asleep at the wheel. Not only doing that but knowingly doing it when you have a history of dropping off while driving is utterly inexcusable.
    - quicklyfrozen 6y ago
      You've never had a bad night's sleep? Never had to make a longish unexpected trip because of a family emergency? Never had to work 2 jobs to make ends meet? In this case, if the person isn't able to get disability b/c of their condition, I can't fault them for doing what they need to survive. I don't like that it puts others at risk, and hope they are taking steps to reduce the risk. Detection technology that alerts them seems like a step in the right direction.
      - Silhouette 6y ago
        You've never had a bad night's sleep? Never had to make a longish unexpected trip because of a family emergency? Never had to work 2 jobs to make ends meet? I've had to do all of those things. At some times in my life, I've had the first and last for an extended period. To my knowledge, I have never as a result driven in a condition that made me unsafe behind the wheel, though. Yours is another comment that talks about people doing what they need to do to survive, which is an ironic characterisation given we're talking about behaviour that is borderline suicidal.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  > If it's dangerous for you to drive, don't drive. It's as simple as that. You've never lived in the States, have you? The absolute vast majority of anything in the States is inaccessible without a car. If you live in a city, sure, you might get by with public transport (almost universally very bad in the States). Anywhere outside the city center? Good luck getting anywhere without a car.
willbw 6y ago
Life can't just 'force' you into #3. It's still a choice you are making. If it is between you not being able to make a meeting on time or a cyclist getting killed because you fell asleep then I hope we can agree the negatives far outweigh the positives. If you can't stay awake for an hour that must be very challenging but I don't think you should be driving at all for longer distances. At least not on a road you share with other people!

joosters 6y ago

If it's dangerous for you to drive, don't drive. It's as simple as that. If you can't stay alert enough for more than an hour, don't drive for more than an hour. If people think that #3 is acceptable, they should never be allowed to drive a car, for everyone else's protection.

missosoup 6y ago
That's not how real life works. It's dangerous for everyone to drive and in the future manual driving will be as legal as riding horses on highways is today. People do potentially deadly risk reward calculus all the time. And of all potentially deadly things that people regularly do to crack down on, this one would have a pretty huge negative ROI for society. This issue impacts a non-trivial percentage of the population. You can't tell them all to change jobs or move their houses to be within whatever travel time limit. This purist notion of 'they should never be allowed to drive a car, for everyone else's protection' crumbles at the most trivial examination when you consider that you're talking about leaving millions of people jobless or in significantly worse quality of life conditions, while also completely reshuffling the housing markets and zoning. And even then, sometimes events will come up that force them to take that chance regardless, such as family emergencies. Rather than this purist isolated-logic bullshit that would probably crash the economy if seriously enforced because you have absolutely failed to consider the first and second order effects of what you're suggesting, we actually have a viable tech solution instead. I'm going to guess that most people who share this viewpoint are either high income earners living in a bubble who don't know what real life is like for most of the population, or are logical purists looking at this issue in isolation and not accounting for what life is like for most of the population. Life for most of the population is working paycheck to paycheck at whatever job you can get in order to make ends meet and keep your kids fed, and living in whatever housing you can get that doesn't make it impossible to get enough sleep to physically keep living due to long commute times. Being prevented from driving would absolutely destroy most affected families. You're going to do a lot more damage to society by preventing all those affected from driving than by doing nothing and letting it contribute to a small percentage of the road toll, which in itself is an insignificant percentage of the total death toll. Which is why every country on the planet has done nothing more drastic than awareness campaigns, despite being aware of this issue. Really, this is where this entire discussion becomes moot. Fatigue and microsleep as a cause of road fatalities are a well studied issue that every developed nation is aware of and has done the calculus on. And not a single one of them decided to ban those affected from driving, because the calculus of that policy results in a massive net COST, not gain. And that calculus shifts even further now that we have fairly cheap car technology available to mitigate the issue. When you think through all this, the only conclusion is 'ban affected people from driving' is moronic and does significantly more harm than good. tl;dr: you'll save more lives by replacing a single coal power plant with renewable energy than by implementing your policy. And you won't destroy the lives of millions of people and potentially crash the economy in the process. And there's already a viable solution on market that mitigates it almost entirely anyway. Pick your battles.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  This purist notion of 'they should never be allowed to drive a car, for everyone else's protection' crumbles at the most trivial examination when you consider that you're talking about leaving millions of people jobless or in significantly worse quality of life conditions You contend that there are millions of people who knowingly drive while tired enough to fall asleep at the wheel and with a history of doing so? If so, I contend that your argument is contrived and your claim is unrealistic. Most people do not and would not drive while so tired that they knew they were likely to fall asleep while doing so. For a start, such a pattern of behaviour would be suicidal. Statistically, there would be far more nasty accidents due to tiredness than actually happen. In reality, only a tiny proportion of people drive while so tired that they might actually fall asleep at the wheel. Not only doing that but knowingly doing it when you have a history of dropping off while driving is utterly inexcusable.
  - quicklyfrozen 6y ago
    You've never had a bad night's sleep? Never had to make a longish unexpected trip because of a family emergency? Never had to work 2 jobs to make ends meet? In this case, if the person isn't able to get disability b/c of their condition, I can't fault them for doing what they need to survive. I don't like that it puts others at risk, and hope they are taking steps to reduce the risk. Detection technology that alerts them seems like a step in the right direction.
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      You've never had a bad night's sleep? Never had to make a longish unexpected trip because of a family emergency? Never had to work 2 jobs to make ends meet? I've had to do all of those things. At some times in my life, I've had the first and last for an extended period. To my knowledge, I have never as a result driven in a condition that made me unsafe behind the wheel, though. Yours is another comment that talks about people doing what they need to do to survive, which is an ironic characterisation given we're talking about behaviour that is borderline suicidal.
dmitriid 6y ago
> If it's dangerous for you to drive, don't drive. It's as simple as that. You've never lived in the States, have you? The absolute vast majority of anything in the States is inaccessible without a car. If you live in a city, sure, you might get by with public transport (almost universally very bad in the States). Anywhere outside the city center? Good luck getting anywhere without a car.

willbw 6y ago

Life can't just 'force' you into #3. It's still a choice you are making. If it is between you not being able to make a meeting on time or a cyclist getting killed because you fell asleep then I hope we can agree the negatives far outweigh the positives. If you can't stay awake for an hour that must be very challenging but I don't think you should be driving at all for longer distances. At least not on a road you share with other people!