Yeah, a big problem..
I remember those 8 leg days with 15-16 hours of duty time - perfectly legal. The thing is - you never get a break.. It's like that day, after day, after day.. 9 or 8 hours of rest = 4-6 hours of sleep.
Unfortunately, for the most part we are (US or Russia and many other countries) a re-active society. If there is a problem in any industry not much is going to get done until something very bad happens.. And then we over react. Time goes by and we let it go again..