SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Treating drowsy driving more like drunken driving would save lives, the National Sleep Foundation says -- but California isn't among the states considering legislation.

Only New Jersey defines drowsy driving as reckless under a vehicular homicide statute. Bills under consideration in eight other states would address drowsy driving.

California isn't one of them.

Valerie Misch thinks it should be. Her son, Michael Sayadoff, lives in constant pain in a nursing home after he was involved in a drowsy-driving crash.

"It's amazing to me that people don't realize how diminished their abilities are when they're drowsy," she said.

Her son was coming home with friends from a concert in the Bay Area. The driver, Adam Mellow, told the California Highway Patrol that he fell asleep at the wheel.

The vehicle slammed into an oak tree on Highway 50 just past Folsom Boulevard.

Mellow's girlfriend, Trisha Watson, was killed in the wreck.

"They were literally two exits from home -- just minutes. That close," her father, Doug Watson, said. "Losing her was devastating. Devastating. Our life will never be the same."

Neither Sayadoff nor Watson was wearing a seat belt.

Misch said rescuers told her it wouldn't have mattered. Her son's right side was broken, and his brain was injured in five places.

After months of physical therapy, Sayadoff hopes to go home one day.

"It's the only way I can fix that hurting part that I feel every second of every day, is just go home," he said.

Misch quit her job to be with her son. Mellow comes to see him, too.

"I know that he deals with it every day," Misch said of her son's friend.

In California, there's no specific violation for falling asleep while driving; drivers can be cited for a moving violation.

The CHP said Mellow's "unsafe turning movement" caused the crash that killed his girlfriend and recommended a charge of vehicular manslaughter. But Mellow was never charged.

"In some ways, I can understand it was an accident. He didn't intend to do it. And at that time, I didn't see the purpose of locking him up," Doug Watson said.

Both he and Misch hope a law on the books will mean fewer roadside memorials, like the one on Highway 50.

"There needs to be a penalty," Misch said. "I hope no one ever has to go to jail for driving while drowsy. Or get a fine or do community service. I hope that people will realize before, pull over and sleep on the side of the road."