Last week, as we availed ourselves of the magnificently efficient Tokyo public transportation system, my friends and I commented on the fact that so many people who appeared to be deeply asleep were able to immediately wake up and get off at their exact station. How do they do it? When I fall asleep on the train my jaw drops open in a rather unnattractive manner and my head bobs around like it is improperly balanced. I am glad I am not the only one who suffers such problems but should defective people like me be punished? Gaurav Bhatia of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago was. According to India Daily:

When a 25-year-old Indian student at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) dozed off in a Chicago subway train, he did not realise his predicament would quickly become a cause celebre. Gaurav Bhatia unwittingly got caught in a controversy over Chicago’s bureaucracy after he was given a $50 ticket for sleeping on the train. The incident occurred when Bhatia, who does not own a car and resides on the IIT campus, fell asleep while riding to work. Local TV and radio channels have highlighted Bhatia’s experience, but Chicago Transport Authority (CTA) and police officials say he was penalised for “sleeping dangerously”. “How dare they?” asked an outraged Bhatia. “If the police officer had written those words on the ticket I would have told him to lock me up because I won”t accept the ticket.” Explaining how the incident had occurred, Bhatia said: “My work starts at 8 a.m., so I leave the house at 7 a.m. I usually sleep on the train. “A lot of people sleep on the train. I mean, I don”t put up my feet and lie down. I just sit there and sometimes I fall asleep, because there is nothing to do.

I am sure this law was meant to prevent homeless people from making a residence out of the train, but is a ticket necessary for an honest mistake?

A police officer came in. “He did not have to shake me up or anything like that. My body is programmed. Every day I take the same train, so my eyes just open up at the same time,” Bhatia said.

You might want to check the lines of code in your program for errors buddy.

Chicago police spokesman David Bayless, who affirmed Bhatia was “sleeping dangerously”, said: “I am told his legs were blocking the aisle.”
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Bhatia explained he had his face against the train window, so he could not possibly have stretched into the aisle. “It would have been physically impossible,” he said, “Even Keanu Reeves from ”Matrix” could not do it.”