Sleepy Truckers Linked to Many Deaths
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Truck drivers who fall asleep at the wheel are a factor in 750 to 1,500 road deaths every year, according to a study by the National Transportation Safety Board, which said that fatigue was more of a safety problem among commercial truck drivers than drugs or alcohol. In the study it approved today, the board criticized Federal and state regulations that permit truck drivers to work with as little as eight hours between shifts, and said that drivers of trucks with sleeping berths had even less protection. Those drivers’ eight hours can be divided into two segments, one as short as two hours. The berths, which are increasingly common, “do not provide the same quality of sleep as you get in your home and in your bed,” said Bernard Loeb, director of the board’s Office of Research and Engineering. Mr. Loeb pointed out that the current rules, which cover 3.6 million trucks, were written in 1937. At that time, before Interstate highways and before truck refrigeration was common, more intense driving was required to move some products before they spoiled. “There’s a lot less justification” now for allowing the division of the eight-hour rest period in sleeping berths, Mr. Loeb said. More : query.nytimes.com |