The struggle for parking spaces

Truck drivers are confronted daily with insufficient truck parking spaces. There is currently only one parking space for every 11 trucks on the road. This places pressure on truck drivers to find a secure spot to rest within the limits of their legal work hours, pushing them to make risky decisions to meet their work obligations. As a result, many drivers resort to parking on freeway off-ramps, side streets, and retail parking lots.

Legislative efforts

Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers in Congress have joined forces to address this issue. They are backing bills that would allocate $755 million to build additional truck parking spots nationwide. Truckers are relying on this legislation to provide them with safe places to rest during their mandatory breaks.

Fatigue and drowsy driving

Truck drivers operate under federally mandated “Hours of Service” regulations that aim to prevent fatigue-related accidents. However, recent changes to these regulations have raised concerns about the impact on road safety. Longer on-duty times may lead to fatigue, which impairs a driver’s performance behind the wheel. Fatigue can compromise a driver’s ability to maintain necessary skills like eye-hand coordination and manual dexterity, leading to an increased risk of accidents.

Recent research suggests truck drivers sleep, on average, about 6.2 hours per day before driving, which is less than the recommended 7 or more hours the AASM recommends. Additionally, drivers traveling between time zones may face an additional burden of fatigue. For truckers, the effect of shifting time zones is amplified given their non-traditional work schedule, raising the risk of drowsy driving accidents.

Scheduling variations pose a safety risk as well. Truckers may experience shift work disorder, which occurs when you have difficulties adjusting to your wake and sleep times due to your work schedule. Shift work disorder causes you to have trouble sleeping or be severely tired.

Watch this video for truckers to understand the signs, causes, and consequences of driver fatigue.

The role of sleep apnea

While long work hours can contribute to fatigue, sleep apnea may also play a role. Sleep apnea is a common sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep, leading to poor quality sleep and daytime drowsiness. Sleep apnea can impair drivers’ ability to stay alert and attentive behind the wheel. Estimates into the prevalence of sleep apnea among truck drivers vary; most likely, around 40% of truckers have the sleep disorder.

Despite its potential impact on road safety, there is no federal requirement for sleep apnea testing for commercial motor vehicle drivers. Some drivers fear that undergoing a sleep study and getting diagnosed with sleep apnea could jeopardize their jobs. However, it’s essential to recognize that sleep apnea is treatable. Your medical provider or a sleep doctor can help you select a treatment plan that is right for you.

Conclusion

The shortage of truck parking spaces has become a major roadblock for truck drivers. The constant search for a safe resting place leaves many drivers sleep-deprived and prone to drowsy driving accidents. Providing rest and parking for truck drivers is more than just a convenience, it’s a step toward ensuring safety on the road.

Medical review by John Saito, MD

Related:

• Study shows high rate of truckers with undiagnosed sleep apnea
• Sleep apnea, shift work a danger on the roads and rails

Authored by: Kate Robards

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On Dec. 1, 2013, a Metro-North train was traveling from Poughkeepsie to New York City. A locomotive was pushing seven train cars with about 115 passengers.

The train entered a curve where the speed limit was 30 miles per hour. But the train continued traveling at a speed of 82 mph. As a result the locomotive and all seven cars went off the rails. Four people were killed, and 61 others were injured. The accident also caused more than $9 million in damage.

The NTSB reports that more than 800 people died in railroad accidents in 2010. This represents only two percent of all annual U.S. transportation fatalities. About 94 percent of transportation deaths occur on U.S. roads. The Federal Railroad Administration reports that 96 percent of railroad deaths involve trespassing or track-crossing incidents.

The NTSB report concluded that the Metro-North train engineer had fallen asleep. His sleepiness was blamed on undiagnosed, severe obstructive sleep apnea. His sleep also may have been disrupted by a recent change in his work shift.

Sleep problems are a widespread danger in the transportation industry. To promote railroad safety the FRA recently sponsored the development of the Railroaders’ Guide to Healthy Sleep.

In March the NTSB medical report indicated that the Metro-North engineer did not recall events leading up to the accident. He was sent to a board certified sleep medicine physician for an evaluation.

The engineer was obese with a history of snoring. He also reported feeling excessive daytime sleepiness. Yet he had never been screened for sleep apnea by any of his medical providers.

A sleep study found that the engineer had severe sleep apnea. He had an average of more than 50 partial or complete breathing pauses for every hour of sleep. These breathing pauses reduced his oxygen levels. They also prevented him from sleeping well.

The doctor prescribed CPAP therapy for the engineer. After one month of treatment he was using CPAP for about seven hours per night. He reported feeling more energetic. Treatment also eliminated his daytime sleepiness.

The National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project reports that snoring is a warning sign for obstructive sleep apnea. Obesity also is a common risk factor for OSA.

Is sleep apnea putting your health and safety at risk? Pledge to “Stop the Snore” and talk to a doctor about sleep apnea. Treating sleep apnea will put your health back on track.

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In the aftermath of the derailment, the engineer visited a board-certified sleep physician, who diagnosed him with severe sleep apnea. When the disorder is untreated, it can cause fatigue, slow reaction times, reduced alertness, and impaired thinking.

At 5-foot-10 and 261 lbs (severely obese), the conductor’s sleep disorder should have been detected long before he went to work that morning. If the disorder had been diagnosed and treated sooner, it’s possible that the deadly accident could have been prevented.

More than 100,000 accidents every year involve a drowsy or impaired driver. A vast majority of these accidents occur every day on our roadways and don’t receive as much attention as the New York train derailment. However, many are just as deadly and just as preventable.

Sleep disorders, medication side effects, and even a night of poor sleep can increase the risk of a drowsy driving accident.

Shift work disorder, or when your body has difficulty adjusting to non-traditional work schedules, is another common cause of drowsy driving among commercial vehicle operators. Truckers, pilots, and train operators are often required to switch between working late nights, overnights, and early mornings. This type of scheduling, which happens all too often, is a safety risk.

It should come as no surprise that the shift work disorder also factored into the commuter train derailment. The conductor had switched his schedule to an early morning shift shortly before the crash, according to an NTSB report.

If you have trouble keeping your eyes open when you’re driving or have difficulty remembering the last few minutes of your trip, you may be putting yourself and anyone else on the road at risk. Short-term drowsy driving prevention tactics may help you get to your destination safely.

If drowsy driving is a regular occurrence, an underlying sleep disorder may be causing your fatigue. Talk to your physician about your sleep or schedule an appointment with a board-certified sleep specialist to find out if you have a sleep disorder.

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The study, published in the March issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, included 1,101 women with the most common form of advanced ovarian cancer, 389 women with borderline ovarian cancer and 1,832 women that were part of a healthy comparison group.

Among the women with advanced cancer, about one quarter had ever worked the night shift, compared with a third of the women with early-stage cancer and a fifth of the healthy comparison group.

Night shift work was associated with a 24 percent higher risk of advanced ovarian cancer and a 49 percent higher risk of early-stage ovarian cancer, the researchers found. However, the risk of cancer was 7 percent lower in women who described themselves as night types.

“We found evidence suggesting an association between shift work and ovarian cancer,” the researchers, led by Dr. Parveen Bhatti, an epidemiology researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, wrote in the study. “However, there was suggestive evidence of a decreased risk of ovarian cancer among women reporting a preference for activity during evenings rather than mornings.”

Approximately 22,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year in the United States, according to the study, and over 15,000 of them will die from the disease. There are very few known risk factors, the researchers wrote in the study, which makes further research to better understand how shift work raises your risk crucial.

The researchers suggested that melatonin, a hormone that is typically produced at night and regulates reproductive hormones such as estrogen, may be to blame for the increased risk. Melatonin suppresses estrogen levels, but is not produced in the presence of ambient light, such as the kind shift workers would be exposed to, according to the study.

To learn more about shift work disorder and other common sleep disorders, visit www.sleepeducation.com.

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There are several reasons why night shifts wreak such havoc on sleep, according to Dr. Mark R. Smith, postdoctoral fellow in the Wright Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“The human biological clock is hardwired to be awake during they day and sleep at night,” he says. “A large majority of shift workers attempt to work when their bodies are actively promoting sleep. Sleeping during the daytime is a difficult endeavor for most people because the biological clock doesn’t usually adjust to night shifts and promotes wakefulness, not sleep, during daytime hours.”

Depending on their biological clock, some people may be more affected than others. A night owl might cope relatively well with night shift work, while most morning people cope relatively poorly, says Smith. Conversely, a morning person might fare relatively better with a work shift that has an early morning start time, whereas the night owl would suffer with such a work shift.

There are some symptoms that shift workers can look for to determine whether they could have a sleep problem such as shift work disorder.  A primary symptom is sleepiness when attempting to remain awake. Other signs include fatigue and difficulty sleeping, specifically when working night shifts, but not on days off.

A board-certified sleep physician can diagnose and help you manage shift work disorder. Some of the available treatments include bright light therapy, sleep medications and melatonin supplements.

This disorder can be difficult to treat at times because these options don’t always address the actual cause of the “disorder”, which is misalignment between the biological clock and the work shift, adds Smith. “Because the biological clocks of most shift workers don’t change substantially, staying alert during each and every night shift and sleeping during each and every day, goes against the grain of our physiology.”

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Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been associated with a higher risk of motor vehicle crashes. In December, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced new rules for the maximum hours of work per shift and mandatory rest periods for truck drivers. The FMCSA reduced by 12 hours the maximum number of hours a truck driver. Truck drivers also were mandated a break of at least 30 minutes after every eight hours worked.

The truckers in the Australian study worked an average of 65 hours a week. When surveyed, 40 percent of the drivers said they had trouble staying awake while driving in the last month. Of the commercial operators diagnosed with sleep apnea, less than half used continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy. CPAP is the first-line treatment for sleep apnea.

The study appears in the April edition of the journal SLEEP. Find out if you are at risk for sleep apnea. Get help for sleep apnea at an AASM-accredited sleep center.

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Women who worked rotating night shifts for three to nine years faced a 20 percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Women who worked nights for 10 to 19 years had a 40 percent rise in risk. And women who worked night shifts for over 20 years were 58 percent more at risk. Women who worked rotating night shifts also gained more weight and were more likely to become obese during the follow-up.

Rotating night shift work was defined as three or more night shifts plus day and evening hours each month. The Harvard School of Public Health tracked more than 175,000 U.S. nurses for this study. Findings were published Dec. 6 in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Researchers said the findings need to be confirmed in men and ethnic groups (96 percent of the nurses were white Caucasians). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 15 million Americans work full time on evening shifts, night shifts, rotating shifts or other irregular schedules.

Read more about shift work sleep disorder and women’s sleep needs. More stories about sleep and type 2 diabetes are available in the news section.

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The study compared a group of 31 shift workers to ten daytime workers. Members in both groups were previously diagnosed with sleep apnea and had similar ages, weights and sleep lengths.

Daytime and nighttime polysomnograph results show that the shift workers had more frequent breathing pauses in breathing and higher oxygen desaturation levels. Both measures show that shift workers had more severe symptoms of sleep apnea.

The authors of the study caution that patients with untreated sleep apnea should avoid nighttime work. The Sleep Education Blog urges workers with sleep apnea to take that warning one step further and never let sleep apnea go untreated. Sleep apnea has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, dementia and other serious health problems.

Shift work also can also harm your health. Some workers may struggle with shift work disorder, which causes your internal body clock to go awry. Workers with shift work disorder may be severely tired but unable to sleep. Loss of sleep length and quality may affect job performance and put workers at risk for injury.

Read more about obstructive sleep apnea and shift work disorder.

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Only one man was on watch in the control room when it happened. He failed to notice the plane until it was too late. He was wrapping up an overnight shift after logging only two or three hours of sleep the prior afternoon. He had 10 hours between shifts, but couldn’t sleep because of his sleep cycle. Prior to the deadly crash, the controller had worked two evening shifts, two daytime shifts, and a full overnight shift.

A group of sleep researchers at Washington State University say the disaster could have been easily prevented. The researchers estimate the air traffic controller was only operating at 71 percent effectiveness because he was fatigued and fighting his circadian rhythms.

A more flexible, sleep-friendly schedule would have helped the controller work at maximum efficiency. AASM member Gregory Belenky suggests airports switch from rule-based staffing schedules to more flexible schedules. The shifts would be based on how much sleep people can actually attain, rather than hours set aside for sleep.

The concept is one step further than the regulation the FAA proposed last year after the fatal 2009 commuter plane crash near Buffalo. Under the proposal, airlines would have to take into consideration the time of day, time zone and circadian rhythms when scheduling shifts. Pilots’ unions strongly opposed the changes, claiming the policy would have a negative impact on safety.
The blame in the 2006 crash can’t be completely pinned on the lone air traffic controller. The pilot and crew were also fatigued from shift work.

Once again, fatigue proves to be of serious concern to public health. Shift work is necessary in our non-stop 24-hour society, but it doesn’t have to be harmful for workers and the public at large. Employee wellness efforts and shift work awareness can go a long way.

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The same can’t be said for switching from shift work to regular daytime hours, a new study reports. Swedish researchers examined the transition hardships associated with shift work.

The study involved more than 3,600 participants who answered questionnaires about work hours, sleep and work environment at the start and end of a five-year period.

Results show the participants had the most sleeping problems upon entering shift work. Many reported falling asleep on the job and having difficulty getting to sleep after work.

Switching back to daytime hours had the opposite effect. The risk of work fatigue and insomnia significantly diminished after leaving shift work.

The findings were adjusted for various factors including work demands, physical workload, and familial status.

Not all shift work schedules are equally difficult a previous study suggests. Jobs with start times between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m. tend to limit sleep and harm performance at work.

Caffeine may help offset fatigue and limit mistakes at work. Make sure to limit consumption to the first couple of hours of work so you don’t have problems getting to sleep later.

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