> Any person left to "monitor" the vehicle will not be paying attention most of the time.
I'm not actually convinced that's true. Heck, people drive regular cars "mostly on autopilot". Haven't you ever "stopped paying attention" and then realize you don't even remember the last 5 minutes of driving?
But it's not really a safety issue, because your brain is very capable of automatically and instantly detecting anything out of the ordinary to alert you to, like something in the road in front of you.
Literally all you have to do is just keep your eyes on the road. You don't have to be paying constant "conscious" attention... you just have to have your eyes in the right place so your brain can automatically alert you if something's not right. Which it is excellent at doing.
Now I'm not saying that somebody can do it for 36 hours straight or without occasional breaks or whatever. But the idea that this is somehow inherently a task we're not suited for is just ludicrous.
In this particular case though, it doesn't even have anything to do with her capabilities of sustained attention. She chose to watch a TV show on her phone. She actively and consciously chose to utterly neglect her safety duties, the entire purpose of her job.
I'm not actually convinced that's true. Heck, people drive regular cars "mostly on autopilot". Haven't you ever "stopped paying attention" and then realize you don't even remember the last 5 minutes of driving?
But it's not really a safety issue, because your brain is very capable of automatically and instantly detecting anything out of the ordinary to alert you to, like something in the road in front of you.
Literally all you have to do is just keep your eyes on the road. You don't have to be paying constant "conscious" attention... you just have to have your eyes in the right place so your brain can automatically alert you if something's not right. Which it is excellent at doing.
Now I'm not saying that somebody can do it for 36 hours straight or without occasional breaks or whatever. But the idea that this is somehow inherently a task we're not suited for is just ludicrous.
In this particular case though, it doesn't even have anything to do with her capabilities of sustained attention. She chose to watch a TV show on her phone. She actively and consciously chose to utterly neglect her safety duties, the entire purpose of her job.