trucker fatigue

A Look Into CVSA’s New Fatigue Management Program

January 5, 2022 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

The North American Fatigue Management Program is now in place within the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance in an effort to reduce driver fatigue and the dangerous incidents that can come along with it.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration initially urged CVSA to create and manage the program, which would operate as a training initiative to educate and prevent overall risks in relation to driver fatigue. FMCSA and Transport Canada are now collaborating with CVSA to bring the program to full force.

Throughout a four-phase, years-long process, medical scientists and sleep analysts within the United States and Canada have worked to implement the North American Fatigue Management Program, which has a variety of methods in place to help finally bring an end to driver fatigue and fatigue-involved crash incidents.

These methods include techniques to identify and treat various sleep disorders, ways to utilize driver fatigue management technology innovations, and support in easily-accessible fatigue prevention training taking place online. Additionally, it includes fatigue prevention education for everyone involved in the transportation process–everyone from driver managers, driver families and spouses, safety managers, and the commercial motor vehicle drivers themselves, to motor carrier executives, motor carrier managers, driver managers, and freight shippers and receivers.

“For the past several years, Canadian and American regulators, carriers, and researchers have worked on the development of a comprehensive approach for managing fatigue,” said NAFMP on its website. “This work has been led by a consortium of government and industry agencies with an interest in developing a more effective means of dealing with professional driver fatigue. The NAFMP Steering Committee agreed to develop a comprehensive FMP that would enhance a carrier’s ability to effectively deal with the challenge of fatigue in a highly competitive, widely dispersed, and rapidly changing industry.”

Additionally, CVSA will work to boost the program and its outreach by offering program information sessions at CVSA conferences and events, hosting steering committee and program meetings to relay program initiatives and improvements, hosting live and pre-recorded question and answer sessions, moderating forums allowing users to ask questions and offer feedback, hosting fatigue management-related webinars and discussions, and offering English, Spanish, and French content to make this information as accessible as possible.

“The multi-year collaborative research to develop, test, and evaluate components of a fatigue management program for commercial vehicle operators has resulted in a thorough understanding of the issues, opportunities, and challenges inherent in managing operator fatigue in a 24/7 motor carrier environment,” explained NAFMP. “The NAFMP was developed through four distinct research, development, and testing phases.”

During phase one, focus groups and motor carriers worked to help in the design of the initiative, with researchers identifying specific fatigue management requirements and creating an effective method of reaching drivers, managers, and dispatchers, with six drivers undergoing initial beta testing.

During phase two, field testing allowed for training and educational materials to be easily assessed and developed, with treatment and screening for sleep apnea being implemented in the program. Six fleets and 38 drivers in Canada began evaluation, followed by eight additional Texas drivers.

Next, 77 commercial vehicle drivers in California, Quebec, and Alberta participated in operational field testing during phase three with findings including positive correlations between reduced critical events and sleep duration and sleep efficiency.

These trends included less fatigue reported in drivers, with improved reported sleep quality on duty days, longer sleep on duty days, a reduction in the proportion of drivers reporting critical events, a significant reduction in critical events per kilometers driven, and duty day improvement regarding sleep duration and sleep efficiency on those days as compared to duration and efficiency in sleep during rest days.

The reduction in drivers reporting critical events had dropped from 46% to 29% during this period, with a 40% overall reduction in critical incidents per kilometer driven.

Finally, phase four involved the creation of the Implementation Manual, training materials, NAFMP website development, and recommended guideline implementation based on all findings from the previous three phases.

Supply Chain Demand Made Worse by Holiday Shopping; Safety Must Still be Top Priority

December 30, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Online shopping during Black Friday and Cyber Monday are still prevalent, but the rush to get those online deals is fading in significance as the major e-commerce boom rages on—one of many impacts brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

For example, between November 1st and November 28th of this year, online spending throughout the United States rose by nearly 14% as compared to the same time period in 2020–reaching a total of $99.1 billion for that month, with November and December’s combined spending expected to reach around $207 billion–a 10% boost from the end of 2020. However, Cyber Monday and Black Friday sales incentives have been dwindling due to supply chain strains.

Additionally, overall discounts for these once-major-sale dates have been diminishing; Adobe noted that average electronic discounts on these days only reached about 12%, as compared to an average of 27% the year prior. Jams in the supply logs and shipping processes of carriers are further exacerbating the issue. Between November of 2019 and November 2021, company out-of-stock messages increased by 258%.

“This is a make-or-break season for aggregators, and whoever has inventory is going to win,” said Goja CEO Walter Gonzales, whose company sells a variety of goods directly on Amazon.

For other Amazon sellers, getting inventory brought into the states efficiently and quickly is as imperative as ever, with Amazon sales increasing by around 50% as compared to last year (particularly for giftable products that are usually in stock).

“Kitchen products are doing very well,” said Pierre Poignant, co-founder and CEO of Branded Group, which sells various home and personal care goods on Amazon’s platform and is selling nearly 50% more products this year than last. “We made investments to make sure we had sufficient inventory for the holidays.”

Although many stores ramped up efforts for the usual holiday shopping rush, the pandemic has made clear that most people prefer to make their purchases–especially for gifts–conveniently online, a trend that’s likely here to stay.

“Physical Black Friday had this aura of craziness because people fought in stores and camped outside,” said Juozas Kaziukėnas, Marketplace Pulse’s founder and CEO. “Now that so much has shifted online, it’s lost its excitement.”

Many brick-and-mortar stores are now turning to increased online options, deals, and shopping incentives to keep up with these demand changes and trends, hitting cyberspace hard in a search for more customers during the holiday season.

“We’re giving away e-gift cards for $5,000, $1,000, and $500!” said Kohl’s in a holiday season tweet. “Follow @kohls, retweet this post, and include #KohlsCyberMondaySweepstakes for a chance to win.”

With online retailers turning to the trucking industry to bring in their needed inventory on time, as well as to ship and deliver their orders, many safety advocates have pointed to the already-challenging shipping bottlenecks that have been taking place during this new era of e-commerce, on top of a long-running and severe truck driver shortage that is making carriers take drastic measures to meet demands.

For instance, some carriers may be willing to bring in younger, inexperienced drivers with much less training in order to have more hands on deck during the holiday season, and truckers may also be feeling so much added pressure to meet their deadlines that they forgo certain safety protocols or drive longer hours with less sleep.

Keeping drivers behaving as safely as possible and ensuring that they are always well-versed in best practices while on the road is of the utmost importance, especially during high-demand seasons in the midst of an already-heavy trend of online shopping continuing throughout the country.

“It goes back to training,” noted Levinson and Stefani’s Ken Levinson. “Just because everyone’s in a rush to get things done, it’s not an excuse to let safety go to the wayside.”

It’s also unfair of carriers to put the pressures of holiday demands on the shoulders of their truckers, he added.

“Often, unsafe trucking companies have unrealistic expectations based on their truckers’ pay and delivery times that it creates a huge incentive to be unsafe, and we can’t have that,” Levinson added.

Drivers Should Have 90 To Replace Their Recalled CPAP Machines, Medical Advisors Recommend

October 19, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

We recently reported on the recent recall to certain continuous positive airway pressure machines (CPAP machines), which are vital pieces of equipment and treatment methods for those with mild to severe sleep apnea. Sleep apnea of some level affects nearly one-third of truck drivers.

The recall was announced earlier this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after it found that debris and harmful chemical exposure during usage of these machines posed a severe health risk to users.

Now, medical examiners are recommended by a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration medical advisory board to offer alternative treatment methods to truck drivers. Examiners are likely to have 90 days to determine which alternative options will be best for truckers afflicted with sleep apnea, and these methods found must offer the same kind of treatment as the Philips Respironics continuous airway pressure machines that are now being recalled nationwide.

“In response to the CPAP recall, appropriate oral appliance usage for certification is accepted for drivers diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea impacted by the Philips Respironics recall,” said the advisory board regarding its recommendations. “This therapy will be accepted until CPAP machines become available again for treatment.”

Still, drivers with untreated and severe sleep apnea are exempt from this recommendation, the medical examiners noted. The review board is still determining the best ways that qualified drivers with obstructive sleep apnea can continue to work and be medically certified to operate their vehicles, when CPAP machines are the treatment method upon which FMCSA has relied for so long.

If obstructive sleep apnea remains untreated, drivers are at a much higher risk for accident or crash as they could become severely fatigued while behind the wheel. Allowing untreated drivers to continue operating their commercial motor vehicles while a new preferred treatment method is found could cause a major public safety risk, board members said.

Levinson and Stefani’s Ken Levinson weighed in on the issue.

“It seems to me that this treatment is something that should absolutely be provided by trucking companies or some sort of government assistance,” he said. “It’s vital that truckers are able to work safely, and if they fall asleep at the wheel, it can cause a lot of harm and it’s a big issue.”

He added that their lifestyles can cause them to be more susceptible to various health problems, so making sure the medical issues at hand are treated in a proper and timely manner is of the utmost importance.

“Truckers have such a sedentary job that it’s hard for them to stay physically fit, so we need to do everything we can to make sure the trucking companies are conducting proper medical testing before drivers are hired and that they can also access the kind of equipment they need, whether it’s these CPAP machines or other devices to stay safe and healthy,” Levinson said.

The medical advisory board is working on ways to offer examiners various methods and opportunities to address the recall for the health of these truck drivers.

“Our goal today is to come together as a group and to develop some recommendations that we can give to the agency that will hopefully be passed along to our medical examiner community and drivers managing this issue,” said board chair Gina Pervall.

This CPAP machine recall has left a clear shortage in the market for sleep apnea equipment, and Philips Respironics explained that it is working to replace the recalled devices as quickly as possible.

“With millions of devices recalled, and many of them used by commercial motor vehicle drivers, Philips’ recall has widespread implications for commercial driver health, highway safety, and interstate commerce,” said American Trucking Associations safety policy specialist, Laura Spector. “As the medical review board is aware, without appropriate treatment options many drivers with obstructive sleep apnea will be out of compliance with FMCSA’s physical qualifications for driver regulations.”

As to how soon a potential solution will be found, Spector explained that many things are still up in the air.

“Notably, there is no clear timeline indicated when individuals might expect their device to be repaired or replaced,” she said, “with some sources estimating it could take up to one year for devices to be fully operational.”

Trucker Fatigue Still Major Issue, But Cell Phone Distraction Has Decreased, New VTTI Study Says

September 23, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“Hands-free cell phone use was found to be protective as it likely helps drivers alleviate boredom, while hand-held cell phone use was found to be risky as it takes the driver’s attention away from driving tasks,” a new study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute stated.

This study found that truck drivers were at a much higher risk of crashing when engaging in distracting actions like adjusting their mirrors, reaching for a snack or beverage, or even adjusting their seat belts, although activities like singing or talking while driving were not found to be a distraction.

Additionally, as compared to past studies, the overall usage of cell phones in a trucker cab was found to have significantly decreased in recent “naturalistic” research focusing upon driver fatigue and distraction.

In fact, “the eighth driving hour showed the highest rate of safety-critical event occurrence,” noted VTTI’s study, which aimed to determine the overall effects of drowsiness and distracting actions on big-rig truck driver safety. The study collected data from 182 trucks, 172 truck drivers, 73 motor coach drivers, and 43 motor coaches across seven different fleets, 10 different locations, and 3.8 million driving miles.

A “significant critical event” in the study pertains to four distinct outcomes–unintentional lane deviation, crash-relevant conflict, a near-crash, or an actual collision

In previous studies, researchers found that around 25% to 30% of crashes came as primarily a result of driver distraction. In Virginia Tech Transportation Institute’s new study, though, researchers determined that, due to their latest research methods, “it is commonly believed that the actual percentage of distracted-related crashes may be substantially higher.”

These updated ways of collecting more accurate data in more efficient ways has made all the difference in finding real safety issues in the trucking industry today, VTTI added.

“Naturalistic data collection and reduction has become the gold-standard method for investigating driver distraction as it allows researchers to see what a driver is doing just prior to a safety-critical event in real-world settings,” the institution said in its study.

Some of the study’s most vital findings include that truck drivers had a direct correlation between the time their eyes were taken off the road for at least two seconds and the amount of risk they had in being involved in a crash or near-crash; that the time of day and the length of a driver’s rest break may impact his or her overall driving behavior; that the time at which the driver begins a particular trip can have a particular effect on his or her fatigue; and that by diving deeper into the collected data regarding driver drowsiness, it was clear that fatigue levels are highest within systematic baselines between 1:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. for crashes or near-crashes in truck drivers who start their shifts in the early-morning hours and who have long trips starting at those times.

“Researchers, transportation officials, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration have all identified driver fatigue as a serious concern for vehicle safety and deemed it to be significantly associated with fatal commercial motor vehicle crashes,” said VTTI in the study. “Drivers have reported that they become fatigued from insufficient time spent recovering during off-duty times, work overload, not working according to their circadian [rhythms], disturbed sleep patterns, and the time sensitivity associated with the nature of their jobs.”

Other determinations made from the results of the study include that the first 10 driving hours for a trucker can be separated into: low significant critical event rate within the first hour, moderate significant critical event rate within the second hour, and high significant critical event rate within the third hour through the 10th hour; that most of the significant critical events took place in daylight when the driver was on a non-junction roadway, on a divided roadway, or in areas without many traffic jams (like an interstate), and while no adverse conditions were present; and that lower amounts of driver texting may show that individual carrier policies, public information campaigns, and local and national legislation changes regarding handheld cell phone use while driving have positively affected safe driver behavior changes throughout the industry.