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For years now, an older generation of sleep medications called benzodiazepines was known for side effects like drowsiness that impaired driving abilities. Newer drugs that contains zolpidem have for years been believed be safer.
However, there is an increasing body of evidence indicating that zolpidem is not without side effects, and that it can remain in the system for hours after the person has taken the medication. Persons, who take these medications, are likely to drive in drowsy state the next morning and cause an accident.
The Food and Drug Administration has been concerned about drowsy driving involving persons driving under the influence of prescription medications and sleep medications, and has implemented a number of measures that are aimed at reducing the impact of these side effects. For instance, earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration required manufacturers of zolpidem to cut down the dosage required for females by half. That decision by the Federal agency came after research found that women tend to retain the drug in their system for longer compared to males.
The Food and Drug Administration also decided to reject a drug approval application by Merck for its new sleep medication suvorexant because it found during testing that the drug contributed to drowsy driving.
The Food and Drug Administration has decided to attack the problem of people driving under the influence of sleep medications by involving drug manufacturers as part of the solution. Testing motorists for prescription drugs after an accident is not an easy task, and different people may absorb a drug in different ways, making identification of drug use as a factor in an accident even more difficult.
