asleep at the wheel

「居眠り運転をして」。

ここでは、「危険な目にいつあうかわからないような不用意な状況で」といった意味で、比喩として使われています。

前回に引き続き、The Guardianの記事、'WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices'から。

In the last two years, other senior energy analysts have backed Husseini. Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency, told the Guardian last year that conventional crude output could plateau in 2020, a development that was "not good news" for a world still heavily dependent on petroleum.

Jeremy Leggett, convenor of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security, said: "We are asleep at the wheel here: choosing to ignore a threat to the global economy that is quite as bad as the credit crunch, quite possibly worse."