I wish I could draw cartoons like that!
I need to get my head back in to the right book for a reference but have read that if we are deprived of 1-2 hours sleep (6 hours being the minimum required) then when we fly/drive after waking we have the same reaction times as someone just over the legal drink drive limit in the UK. If you are deprived of 3 hours sleep in a night then your reactions are the same as someone who has had 4 or 5 pints of beer. It was all researched in a vehicle driving simulator and of course allowances need to be made for circadian rhythms, metabolism etc but the message is straightforward enough, when tired/fatigued we are not as good as we think we are. Fly pissed and we lose our jobs/go to jail and yet here the airline companies are trying to replicate the same reaction issues by condoning that we fly fatigued.