I welcome anyone taking the time to carry out reserch on this subject. I would urge pilots to take a few moments to complete the survey.
It includes a comments section, my response to which I reproduce below:
The tiredness and fatigue problem can be more related to the time of the duties, and the changing of times of duties, e.g. from morning to evening or visa versa than the total amount of duty.
Humans are all different and some people can cope with early starts or nights than others.
I am not a mornings person and am finding a trend for earlier and earlier starts. Report times of 4.30 am local, requiring wake up at times from 3 am often mean that I have had only a few hours sleep (despite trying to go to bed early). The other day I feel asleep in the cruise (as pilot non handling at 11am). I often feel exhausted by lunch time and have had to make arrangements for rest accommodation local to the airport although my home is only 50 motorway miles away, a normal journey time of a hour; because I am too tired to safely drive home.
That being the case how wise is it to be legally in charge of an airliner with hundreds of peoples lives in my hands?
A system which allows pilots to have some choice in the selections of duties which best suits them, combined with sensible regulations (which take into account typical commuting times), would in my view be safer, better for health and domestic relations and has the potential to improve productivity.
I hope that it does not take a serious accident before the authorities take notice.