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On sleepy drivers
I am sharing this article on sleep-deprived driving as there appears to be low awareness of the dangers of this behavior as opposed to the typical drunk driving or driving under the influence (DUI) cases that we often hear or read about in the news (mainstream or social media).
Britt, R.B. (April 18, 2023) “Sleep-Deprived Drivers Might as Well be Drunk,” Medium.com, https://robertroybritt.medium.com/sleep-deprived-drivers-might-as-well-be-drunk-887aab48c1c [Last accessed: 4/21/2023]
To quote from the article:
“A 2016 study by AAA linked lack of sleep in the past 24 hours to dramatically higher crash risk, in hour-by-hour increments:
6–7 hours sleep: 1.3 times the risk
5–6 hours: 1.9 times the risk
4–5 hours: 4.3 times the risk
<4 hours: 11.5 times the risk
The risk of a crash drops to zero if you simply stay off the road, of course. Otherwise, the bottom line is pretty clear:
“You cannot miss sleep and still expect to be able to safely function behind the wheel,” said David Yang, executive director for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.”
So make sure you get your sleep because it is really important for you to function not just as a driver or rider. It also applies to other activities or tasks as well whether you’re working, studying or playing.
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The Philippines Anti-Drunk Driving Law
It’s a Friday and another weekend is here. It’s also payday weekend and so it’s expected that restaurants, cafes and bars will be full tonight and the weekends with people dining, lunching, having coffee, and likely for many – drinking. For many years, the latter has resulted in too many road crashes, a significant number of which have had fatal outcomes – usually cars or motorcycles crashing into one another or by themselves. It’s even more dangerous (and highly likely to be fatal) for motorcycle riders who need to balance themselves on two wheels after getting inebriated. Meanwhile, a lot of driving under the influence (DUI) that in many other countries including the US and Japan don’t get apprehended primarily due to the absence of laws and guidelines for their capture and evaluation. There was no way to test their blood alcohol content (BAC) in the field and traffic personnel couldn’t force people to go to hospitals to be tested.
There’s good new, however, especially for road safety advocates. The Philippines is finally implementing Republic Act No. 10586 – An Act Penalizing Persons Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol, Dangerous Drugs, and Similar Substances, and for other Purposes, which was signed into law in May 27, 2013. Under the law, private vehicle drivers can be arrested and penalized for BAC of more than 0.05% while truck and public transport drivers and motorcycle riders can be apprehended for a BAC of more than 0.0%. For comparison, Japan requires a BAC of 0.0% for ALL motorists.
The Implementing Rules and Regulations for the law may be found here: PH Anti Drunk Driving Law2013 Rules. The Land Transportation Office (LTO) and the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) have already acquired equipment to help them evaluate apprehended persons. These include breath analyzers and staffs of both agencies have already undergone training to be able to implement the law. Unfortunately, traffic enforcers cannot randomly test people on the road but would have to apprehend them first for violating other traffic rules and regulations. But I am sure our traffic law enforcers can be quite creative in how to catch these people who pose dangers to all other road users by their being irresponsible for driving or riding under the influence of alcohol or dangerous drugs. And with the national elections coming up next year, there will be a lot of checkpoints sprouting up along major roads that will also open opportunities for testing and apprehensions.
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Caught (up) in traffic 