Info You Don't Need While Driving

Imagine losing your life because someone is moronic enough to believe he can navigate a 3000 pound, potentially lethal vehicle while diverting his attention to a device with tiny buttons… Erik Lacitis, writing in the Seattle Times, explains how BlackBerry tapping caused a car-crunching chain reaction on Iinterstate Highway 5:

A 53 year-old man “fiddling with his BlackBerry, was cruising down Interstate 5's express lanes Tuesday morning in his minivan, oblivious that traffic ahead had come to a dead stop…” “His minivan smashed into a car, setting off a chain reaction that included three other cars and a Community Transit bus, which was carrying 28 passengers.

“No one was seriously injured, but the accident near downtown Seattle underscores the dangers of driving while preoccupied with electronic gadgets, other passengers and even ‘driver grooming,’ according to a state study.”

“The driver of the first car rear-ended by the minivan was a 36-year-old Lake Forest Park woman whose 5-month-old son was in a car seat in the back seat. The woman and her son were in satisfactory condition and staying overnight for observation at Harborview Medical Center, according to a spokeswoman.”

This is sheer madness and the essence of ineffective information and communication mismanagement

U.S Hospitals Ignore Vital Data

Study: Sleepy doctors a liability for hospitals

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (Reuters) -- A study cited early last year reveals that “overworked, sleepy doctors-in-training who hit the road after work are as much a hazard as drunk drivers, a finding that could unleash a wave of lawsuits against U.S. hospitals…”

“According to a study in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, medical interns who worked shifts lasting 24 hours or more were twice as likely to be involved in serious crashes after work than doctors who put in fewer hours. Just as bartenders are now being held liable for accidents caused by drunk customers, hospitals, which routinely schedule interns to work double, triple or quadruple shifts, may soon find themselves sued for motor vehicle accidents caused by exhausted staff, one of the researchers said.”

"The medical profession should be a leader in accident prevention, yet it's requiring its medical trainees to work marathon shifts and lets them drive home in this impaired condition in which they're unfit to drive," said Harvard Medical School's Charles Czeisler, a sleep expert. "That's akin to letting someone get behind the wheel when you know they're drunk."

Despite years of research showing sleep-deprived workers are more prone to errors, the U.S. medical community has been slow to cut back on trainees' hours. The European Union has imposed a 13-hour limit on daily shifts for physicians, with some exceptions.