Perhaps, you've heard of the new regulations in trucking HOS Rules - HOS stands for hours of service, and truck drivers are not allowed to drive over a certain amount of time, in order to ensure they are not fatigued and thus, cause an accident.
We have similar rules in aviation for airline transport pilots, and the military watches over their warfighters very carefully to make sure they are fully awake and ready to fight when it really matters.
In fact, many of the studies we use today to determine the proper amount of sleep came from old US Navy studies with pilots aboard ships - obviously you have to pay attention - you don't get a second chance if you make a critical error at the wrong time while trying to land a jet aircraft on a postage stamp.
Yes, let's talk shall we? There was an interesting article in Commercial Carrier Journal on September 12, 2013 titled; "House bill would require sleep disorder regulation, not guidance," by James Jaillet, which stated; "Legislation introduced into the House this week would force the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to develop a formal regulation rather than guidance if it were to pursue any action on sleep disorder screening and treatment.
" I have two points I'd like to make about this new bill and attempt to create an impossible world (in the present period) of no trucking accidents.
First, all these hours of service rules to stop accidents, haven't changed the number of accidents much, in fact it is statistically impossible to prove within the margin of error considering the ups and downs of trucking mileage and changes in the industry, most of which have nothing to do with any legislation.
Second, I ask; What about "text messaging" addiction? If someone has a sleep disorder, maybe they shouldn't be carrying a commercial driver's license at all? Further, once a truck driver gets used to driving endless miles for hours at a time, they develop a greater tolerance for it.
A truck driver who has done that for 30-years doesn't need to be limited to only 8 or 10 hours of operation, that's just ridiculous, and it is a bunch of non-truck drivers who don't understand making rules for all the people who do.
Of course, this often is typical of government agencies and we've come to expect such things from the DOT (Department of Transportation).
We just seem to be making too many rules, we are hurting commerce, and raising the prices of all the goods and services we buy in this civilization when we limit distribution - remember everything comes by truck somewhere along its journey.
Please consider all this and think on it.