How many airplanes crashed due to The pilot being on drugs?
it seems like introducing a whole machinery to just have the same resting is an industrial scale waste of resources.
However, people regularly die because of drunk and tired drivers.
Of course no law would have prevented this because the Nazis made the law in Germany.
How many people could be hurt by a drunk pilot, and how many could be hurt by working at a Walmart while high?
The point is that we test where there is no reasonable danger at all and don't test when there is. Why? We drug test poor people and not wealthy people.
Walmart is the same.
“ After pilots and flight attendants have been hired, they are subject to random drug screenings. Federal regulation detail the percentage of the total employees who should be subject to random testing in a given year, and this figure is usually around 50% and varies by the positive test rate from previous data. As drug testing is random, flight and ramp crew don't know when these tests will occur. Pilots and flight attendants who are randomly selected for drug screenings will often be met on the jet bridge after passengers have deplaned. An official holding a clipboard is usually the sign of an upcoming random drug screening.” - https://simpleflying.com/pilot-drug-test-frequency-guide/
As long as testing is uncommon you could say that number will remain at zero or near zero simply for lack of data.
You comment implies but doesn’t state explicitly that you think truck drivers are more likely than pilots to be on drugs, is that true though?
Let’s say for argument’s sake that truck drivers proportionally engage in more risky behavior. This can be either the use of stimulants or simply driving tired. Why is that?
Drivers’ — like many low status workers — jobs security is more precarious and are monitored more. Therefore, they’re more likely to engage in risky behavior in a desire to simply not be fired.
Now let’s get back to pilots. Is it just that airline pilots are a high status job like ceo? Not entirely. Pilots are essentially no different than truck drivers in the sky. Ironically, it’s because planes themselves are tracked by a competent and vigorous government agency, that employers can’t put the same pressures on pilots that they can on truck drivers.
This comment betrays the old and persistent idea that lower status people are inherently shifty and lazy, while higher status people are inherently more virtuous.
Success at the top is a careful dance of social nuance. If you fly to an on-site, get drunk in the hotel bar, and are late to the meeting or smell like booze, you're social status will be impacted unless you're a wizard with social excuses or make up for it in some other way.
So--in a way--the success is the greatest drug test.
This is very deep seated idea in American culture. It manifests all sorts of ways. Deference to the rich, because clearly every rich person got and stayed rich through hard work and skill, instead of luck and family connections. Harsher penalities for poor people crimes, rather than rich people crimes. Constant monitoring for low wage workers, but no monitoring of high wage ones. Egregious hoops and monitoring for welfare, versus tax credits. Hell, even modern evangelical grifters leverage this idea with their prosperity gospel lies.
Disclaimer: I believe it's society's duty to shame the shifless and lazy.
And most of the behaviors that are taught by religions are rooted in anecdotal evidence over hundreds of years. Harder workers usually succeed more than the lazy. It's a lot more effective to say "hard work = heaven".
And it's not even really about "success". Giving a damn about what you do in this life is key to a life of happiness and therefore a life aimed at a target and governed by rules about how to interact with your fellow man. "Giving a damn" is the most important foundation for financial success as well.
It's not about that. But also statistically on average that idea is accurate in this case at least. The qualifications and self-discipline required to become a pilot are significantly higher than for a driver. Your also surrounded by many other people all the time so it's much harder to not get noticed. Also AFAIK random testing for alcohol is certainly a thing for pilots.
> that employers can’t put the same pressures on pilots
One might argue that they would more or less end up doing the same on their own. The cost/risk ratio is extremely different compared to truck drivers. Also costs of having extra pilots/allowing them to work less are not that significant relative to road transportation.
lol. No. Not at all. There is nothing to support this widely held idea. This is the very bias I was talking about.
You mean you don't think that there is a difference between commercial pilots and truck etc. drivers when it comes to drug and alcohol use?
> lol. No. Not at all.
That does sound very convincing.
“To a degree” means some pilots will still stay up late and try to use stimulants to stay awake. But the pressure on the two cohorts is not equivalent.
This is an interesting question but not all drugs decrease performance. For instance, if a pilot responsibly takes some wakey meds before landing a long haul flight it may be a good thing. There’s a reason for the “I can’t function before the morning coffee” expression.
I remember a documentary many years ago about long haul pilots who went partying HARD the day before flying back from Bangkok, Tokyo or places like that. They wouldn’t have been allowed to drive, but flew hundreds of passengers. It was filmed undercover, but I don’t remember if there was a backlash/consequences.
Yeah, a lot of people tend to be later-risers. The realities of the 9-5 job mean that they have to get up at 6-7 to get the kids ready for school, then get themselves ready for work, and then the commute to work... despite that going completely against their chronotype.
WFH alleviates a lot of that stress.
i recently met someone who stopped drinking coffee and after a while realized that the only reason he could not function without having a coffee before was that he must have been addicted to it. once he got off that addiction the problem went away.
the only reason that stops me from functioning in the morning is lack of sleep.
But ultimately it comes down to sleep. Caffeine just masked sleep problems. If I don't sleep well, I still crave it. If I sleep well, I don't think about it anymore.
Unfortunately the pilot was also drunk. And he tried to shift the blame of the vodka bottle to the deceased person. There is no amount of technical skill that should permit someone like that behind a stick ever again.
I am quite convinced it is a productivity measure.
Otherwise, you'd see productivity being better in places that allow drug testing of normal employees and worse off in places that do not. But that's not the case: Retail employees in Norway aren't really less productive than those in the US.
Plus, if it really were a productivity measure, why would you not drug test more professionals and salaried employees? Does their productivity not matter? Wouldn't more small businesses find drug testing worth the money?
Depending on the drug, and the circumstances.
I'm sorry to say.
What business does an employer have with employee drug use outside of work?
I didn't say that drugs never have that effect. And like you say, May. The same drug might have different effects for different folks, too.
If drug testing was motivated by productivity, amphetamines wouldn’t be tested for.
good question, but there is just no way to get an answer
Every crew involved in a commercial aviation mishap knows they’ll be tested as well.
There may be no way to get an answer with 6 significant figures, but you can get a pretty good answer.