New news on truckers and sleep apnea.
The American Trucking Associations says nearly a third of drivers are likely suffer from sleep apnea.
I have worried more and more about exhausted truckers causing accidents.
- Not because they are not experienced. I marvel at the way a trucker can turn a corner in a city street without clipping my car.
- Not because they are inhuman barbarians that do not care about those around them. They are, for the most part, very patriotic folks that will stop to lend a hand.
No, but because…
- They, like the rest of us, are getting larger. Due to the amount of time they sit everyday, it is even more of a problem with them gaining weight. This makes the neck size larger, a major indication of possible sleep apnea.
- They have weird sleep schedules. Sleep pattern interruptions are a major contributor to inattention on any job.
- They, by and large, do not have health insurance. Due to the expense, they never get tested for, and thus never treated.
If you are a trucker or have a trucker in your family, please consider getting them to a sleep clinic to get tested.
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There is a number of issues that you have raised. The first is that what the ATA actually said was that 1/3 of the CMV drivers needs to be tested for Sleep Apnea. Of that number from confidential sources I know that about 10 to 13% of the drivers actually have sleep apnea.
You also mentioned how fatigue causes so many accidents in the trucking industry. Recently there was an extensive study in Europe on the subject. In the combination accidents between cars and trucks that they looked at only 25% of the accidents we the fault of the truck. And in looking at all the accidents they examined, only 6% we a related to fatigue. that AAA and the Canadian version of the AAA have also done some studies and come up with similar numbers.
And by the way there has been no definitive studies done that prove the relationship between sleep apnea and crashes in commercial motor vehicles. There has been several studies that show a relationship between crashes and sleep apnea in car drives. The reason there is a difference is because the truck driver has a different skill set that helps him/her compensate to things that are bothering them physically.
Here is the bottom line. Everyone wants to punish the truck driver when something goes wrong. What we need is regulations that instead of punishing people when things goes wrong, make it possible for drivers to get treated for their illnesses early and do it a way that the driver is not scared he will loose his job as a result of early detection. Today if a driver gets involved in preventive medicine he may be taken off the road from 7 days to 3 months with no compensation if certain things are found.
Thanks you for your consideration of this material and for posting it if you do.
Gary, thanks for that excellent post.
I cannot debate your numbers. I can agree that there needs to be some system in place to allow truckers (and anyone else) to get proper treatment without losing the income that they need to maintain their family. I can understand the fear to seek treatment.
The majority of truckers are excellent drivers, much better than that motorist that cut them off all the time. My primary concern is the size and weight of the vehicles that they drive and the pressure that they are under to complete trips. And the extended hours on the road do not help the truckers maintain good health, contributing to the problem.
I do acknowledge that many of the car drivers are much more negligent that the professional truckers on the road.
It was a pleasure. Please post again.