Blood test for tired drivers
Discussion
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/08/bl...
Driving while tired is a major problem. When I worked nights and faced with an hour long commute there were times when I could feel myself dropping off - really scary and an obvious menace to others.
It's going to be a few years coming but is it going to be a good addition to road safety?
SD.
Driving while tired is a major problem. When I worked nights and faced with an hour long commute there were times when I could feel myself dropping off - really scary and an obvious menace to others.
It's going to be a few years coming but is it going to be a good addition to road safety?
SD.
The headline in the paper is the usual bait, the detail is different. The threshold for 'tiredness' would be hard to legislate against, but the blood test described in the article can apparently (with 99% accuracy) detect if a person has been awake for over 24 hours. Now those people are a menace.
However, "Further work is needed to validate the markers and investigate whether they can quantify whether someone has slept for, say, five hours or just two." That smells a bit to me, a law on how much sleep to drive? Eh?
However, "Further work is needed to validate the markers and investigate whether they can quantify whether someone has slept for, say, five hours or just two." That smells a bit to me, a law on how much sleep to drive? Eh?
Addition to safety? Nope, obviously not.
There are already enough rules in place and the ones that concern safety and making progress could be summed up with "don't be a selfish t
t and respect other road users".
But alas speed kills and so does alcohol, so I sit in my sports car behind 13 other cars stuck behind a Skoda doing 30mph in a 60mph on a clear sunny day and I have to do it sober.
There are already enough rules in place and the ones that concern safety and making progress could be summed up with "don't be a selfish t
t and respect other road users". But alas speed kills and so does alcohol, so I sit in my sports car behind 13 other cars stuck behind a Skoda doing 30mph in a 60mph on a clear sunny day and I have to do it sober.
but I'm thinking on call workers!deja.vu said:
Teddy Lop said:
Doesn't sit comfortably due to human variability and ability to self measure, but if it's limited to use after an accident that's one thing.
The same statement could be used about alcohol.Don't get me wrong I don't want tired drivers on the road, but like speed and alcohol this stuff becomes about chasing and enforcing measurable targets rather than judgement, skill and experience; this is a constantly reoccurring parasite at every single level in our society, we try to reduce everything to explicit words.
I'd better find a new job, currently a train manager, earliest shift starts at 0310 and the latest finishes at 0300.
For the early start it's up at 0200 so it's off to bed around 1900 and try and quite often fail to sleep, it's a countdown every so often you wake think it's time to get up but it's 21-2200 and then you do the calculation and figure how much time you have before the alarm goes off , which also stresses you out and the vicious circle continues until you have to get up
For the early start it's up at 0200 so it's off to bed around 1900 and try and quite often fail to sleep, it's a countdown every so often you wake think it's time to get up but it's 21-2200 and then you do the calculation and figure how much time you have before the alarm goes off , which also stresses you out and the vicious circle continues until you have to get up
ssray said:
I'd better find a new job, currently a train manager, earliest shift starts at 0310 and the latest finishes at 0300.
For the early start it's up at 0200 so it's off to bed around 1900 and try and quite often fail to sleep, it's a countdown every so often you wake think it's time to get up but it's 21-2200 and then you do the calculation and figure how much time you have before the alarm goes off , which also stresses you out and the vicious circle continues until you have to get up
The problem with shifts is everything doesn’t end exactly after you 8 hour shift… There’s always a shift handover and a bit of admin that takes you over 8 hours, then you could have a 45 minute or 1 hour drive home, then you have household chores, cook meals, sort the kids out. For the early start it's up at 0200 so it's off to bed around 1900 and try and quite often fail to sleep, it's a countdown every so often you wake think it's time to get up but it's 21-2200 and then you do the calculation and figure how much time you have before the alarm goes off , which also stresses you out and the vicious circle continues until you have to get up
Before you know it, your 16 hours rest has soon disappeared into nothing and you’ve just a few hours sleep. Only to be waken up by the bellends next door.
I’ve known guys wake up at 05:00 to commute into work, then do a 9.5 hour shift and then an hours commute back home after.
Thanks to Tory Britain, it’s only going to get worse. Good luck doing this when you’re 70.
Mr Miata said:
The problem with shifts is everything doesn’t end exactly after you 8 hour shift… There’s always a shift handover and a bit of admin that takes you over 8 hours, then you could have a 45 minute or 1 hour drive home, then you have household chores, cook meals, sort the kids out.
Before you know it, your 16 hours rest has soon disappeared into nothing and you’ve just a few hours sleep. Only to be waken up by the bellends next door.
I’ve known guys wake up at 05:00 to commute into work, then do a 9.5 hour shift and then an hours commute back home after.
Thanks to Tory Britain, it’s only going to get worse. Good luck doing this when you’re 70.
12hrs rest here and if they get the way with modernisation some staff will have 9 hrs turnaround between shifts Before you know it, your 16 hours rest has soon disappeared into nothing and you’ve just a few hours sleep. Only to be waken up by the bellends next door.
I’ve known guys wake up at 05:00 to commute into work, then do a 9.5 hour shift and then an hours commute back home after.
Thanks to Tory Britain, it’s only going to get worse. Good luck doing this when you’re 70.
untakenname said:
Along with checking for tiredness they also need to check caffeine levels and have a tolerance level similar to how they have with illicit drugs, with fatal accidents the drivers more often than not have excessive caffeine in the system.
Is that a problem in itself or a side effect of people attempting to use caffeine to overcome tiredness?As someone who's suffered 'life changing injuries' as they call it, I'd welcome raising the awareness of the impact of tiredness on driving. I remember years back a study which, iirc, stated reactions between 2 and 6.30am are typically impaired to the same extent as someone at the DD limit.
How it'd be implemented I don't know. Making cars like insulated living rooms and the message that it's only speed, drink and drugs that are dangerous doesn't help, and ingrained attitudes are hard to change.
How it'd be implemented I don't know. Making cars like insulated living rooms and the message that it's only speed, drink and drugs that are dangerous doesn't help, and ingrained attitudes are hard to change.
OK I will own up
I have been a same day long distance courier all my life and run a small same day company.
Back in the day I would run UK and Europe for days on end with no sleep literally drive for 3 days non stop .
It was different back then I needed to get the money in the bank building the business paying mortgagees and borrowed money and 3 young children . I did this for years and decades without incident but back then you could get away with everything
I had trick drink a litre of water in one go and eat a banana and that would wake me up
One thing I have never done is expect anybody else to do what I do I have always been a responsible employer.
Now I'm in my mid 50s I am happy doing 500 mile a day but beyond that I just cant do it anymore I have a premier account and there is always a cheap meal house on each site .
Having experienced all this I would now say that driving tired is the worse thing you can do and I am not sure now that when you believe you are OK that if you really are OK
I am also a distance runner and monitor my health daily in the last couple of years and when I'm tired my blood pressure goes right up showing me again the effect that driving tired could have on my system
Now Im older I am a keen supported of road safety and these reckless shenanigans are just no good
I have been a same day long distance courier all my life and run a small same day company.
Back in the day I would run UK and Europe for days on end with no sleep literally drive for 3 days non stop .
It was different back then I needed to get the money in the bank building the business paying mortgagees and borrowed money and 3 young children . I did this for years and decades without incident but back then you could get away with everything
I had trick drink a litre of water in one go and eat a banana and that would wake me up
One thing I have never done is expect anybody else to do what I do I have always been a responsible employer.
Now I'm in my mid 50s I am happy doing 500 mile a day but beyond that I just cant do it anymore I have a premier account and there is always a cheap meal house on each site .
Having experienced all this I would now say that driving tired is the worse thing you can do and I am not sure now that when you believe you are OK that if you really are OK
I am also a distance runner and monitor my health daily in the last couple of years and when I'm tired my blood pressure goes right up showing me again the effect that driving tired could have on my system
Now Im older I am a keen supported of road safety and these reckless shenanigans are just no good
Edited by jeremyh1 on Tuesday 9th May 19:02
It would be interesting to see how Companies would deal with this issue and what responsibilities they would have towards shift workers.
For example, on the Railway there is a lower (or in the case of where I work - Zero) tolerance for alcohol - would they adopt the same for sleep?. I also work shifts and operate heavy machinery, Waking up at 0700 on the first day of a night shift , pottering around and then starting work at 19:00 and still operating that machinery until 06:45 the following morning, which would probably (hypothetically) put me in breach of the intended regulations.
Having worked shifts for over 30 years I do tend to be sensible, and go to bed in the afternoon for 3-4 hours or even just a couple of hours on the sofa, but I'm lucky enough to be able to do that. Many others are not.
It is a good idea, by my own admission there have been times when driving home on a winters morning after having a very tough physical shift and being on my chinstrap when I have been ignorant and driven home, in knowledge that I'm not in the best physical state to be doing so. My trick was to chug a load of water half hour before the end of shift then I'd be dying for a piss on the way home, thus guaranteeing an uncomfortable but very much awake and alert trip home. Even if I did have to piss on the daffodils in the garden a few times.
For example, on the Railway there is a lower (or in the case of where I work - Zero) tolerance for alcohol - would they adopt the same for sleep?. I also work shifts and operate heavy machinery, Waking up at 0700 on the first day of a night shift , pottering around and then starting work at 19:00 and still operating that machinery until 06:45 the following morning, which would probably (hypothetically) put me in breach of the intended regulations.
Having worked shifts for over 30 years I do tend to be sensible, and go to bed in the afternoon for 3-4 hours or even just a couple of hours on the sofa, but I'm lucky enough to be able to do that. Many others are not.
It is a good idea, by my own admission there have been times when driving home on a winters morning after having a very tough physical shift and being on my chinstrap when I have been ignorant and driven home, in knowledge that I'm not in the best physical state to be doing so. My trick was to chug a load of water half hour before the end of shift then I'd be dying for a piss on the way home, thus guaranteeing an uncomfortable but very much awake and alert trip home. Even if I did have to piss on the daffodils in the garden a few times.
A hardcore 'limit' doesn't seem fair to me for two reasons:
1. it's a big stretch to come up with a reason it could be necessary to drive drunk (not impossible though - house being on fire in a rural area would be an obvious one). There are plenty more socially acceptable reasons it may be necessary to drive tired (dying parents/injured child for example - and in both of those examples I think the adrenaline would wake you up anyway).
2. the specificty of the test doesn't sound good enough - will capture plenty of innocents.
Still that's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most of the time driving idea is a terrible idea and it would be reasonable to have more objective evidence of this and to discourage it more. I think if you were going to do this then it should:
1. be a rebuttable presumption that the driver was impaired, not an absolute limit.
2. have a "reasonable excuse" exemption
1. it's a big stretch to come up with a reason it could be necessary to drive drunk (not impossible though - house being on fire in a rural area would be an obvious one). There are plenty more socially acceptable reasons it may be necessary to drive tired (dying parents/injured child for example - and in both of those examples I think the adrenaline would wake you up anyway).
2. the specificty of the test doesn't sound good enough - will capture plenty of innocents.
Still that's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most of the time driving idea is a terrible idea and it would be reasonable to have more objective evidence of this and to discourage it more. I think if you were going to do this then it should:
1. be a rebuttable presumption that the driver was impaired, not an absolute limit.
2. have a "reasonable excuse" exemption
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