Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/114712
Voices Drivers: Hours flexibility would improve safety Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Hark back to a time – if not of hope and change, at least for hope for change – when the Obama administration's leadership team at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration came into office in 2009. Within a year, they did something that hadn't been done in a long while. They held "listening sessions" – formal raps with drivers at truck stops, a trucking show and via the Web – to garner input on the thorny hours issue. Drivers got some of the change they wanted, but FMCSA didn't listen to their key concern. While the agency did modify the regs to allow for the occasional two-hour extension of the 14-hour clock to compensate for extended dock wait times, they added further sleeper berth restrictions relative to the 34-hour restart provision and left the 8/2-hour sleeper split unchanged. During the listening sessions, drivers asked for more split flexibility with potential to extend the 14-hour workday. This would help remove systemic pressures to "drive tired," felt by many operators today as they eschew extended breaks to maximize limited driving hours, as reader Eric Hassevoort put it on Overdrive's Facebook page. Commentary from him and others came on the heels of results from an FMCSA-commissioned study released in January that in some ways seemed to back up the call for more flexibility. The study showed that drivers using more-permissive five-hour split sleep periods could be expected to get more sleep than those using consolidated daytime-only berth periods. The study provided a means to Would more permissive splitsleeper-period rules allow drivers to get better rest? No, current 2/8-hour split is adequate 2% Yes, but limit it to a 3/7-hour split I don't know 2% 2% Yes, but limit it to a 4/6hour split When a recent FMCSA-commissioned study found that routine daytime sleep of lengthy periods was more fatiguing overall than split sleep periods, some commenters questioned the study's credibility, considering the source: "More tax money spent to get answers to back your cause," noted one. But others pointed out that study results seemed to contradict the agency's line with its new, more-restrictive hours rule, set to go into effect in July if court battles don't hold it up. The study "shows that getting a nap while you wait to load is helpful," wrote Craig Vecellio under the story at OverdriveOnline.com, "and drivers should be able to keep driving if they have a refreshing break." 10% Yes, allow drivers to split as they see fit 84% quantify the "sleep when you need it, drive when you don't" maxim, wrote Craig Vecellio, commenting at OverdriveOnline.com. "If you get to sleep when you are tired, you are more alert and healthier on the inside. The split sleep not only showed no difference in performance, it also showed no difference in blood composition and general sleepiness. … It is true that if you get to sleep when you are tired, you don't need as much sleep." Split-sleepers were shown to average 1.2 hours less sleep per day than those who slept during Scan the code to download the split-sleep-period study conducted for FMCSA, or visit goo.gl/SHNVx. consolidated nighttime periods. Cynics said the agency would use the figure to justify current berth restrictions. In the end, most called for more berth flexibility. "One-size-fits-all regulations don't promote safety," James Martin wrote on Overdrive's Facebook page, referencing drivers' differing schedules and sleep needs. "I rarely sleep more than five hours at a time. Then I have to sit around unproductive for another five hours. By then, I'm ready to go back to sleep." 4 | Overdrive | March 2013 Voices_0313.indd 4 2/28/13 2:06 PM