Scary: Union president fighting for dozing CTA driver, "We’ve all dozed off driving a train"

This really inspires confidence. 

She is “torn to pieces’’ over the accident, Kelly said, and the union will fight any attempt to terminate her.

“She’s distraught over this. She is not happy with this. We don’t go out and say `Today we’re gonna take a train and ride it up a platform,’” Kelly said

The woman became qualified to operate a CTA train in January and admitted to investigators that she had dozed off and overshot a station just one month later, in February.

Two dozing incidents in two months “sounds bad. It sounds horrible in the public’s eyes,’’ Kelly said. “Each individual is different, and it all depends on what’s going on. Come on. We’ve all dozed off driving a train [or a car]. There’s a difference between dozing and falling asleep, in my opinion.’’

The operator had worked 69 hours in the eight days that ended with the accident shift, Kelly said. The CTA, apparently subtracting for lunch, put the number at 55.7 hours over seven days — still well over a 40-hour work week.