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Gov't Officials Want Truckers Screened For Safety

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Oct 22, 2009 4:33 pm US/Mountain

Gov't Officials Want Truckers Screened For Safety

Reporting
Stan Bush

SUMMIT CO., Colo. (CBS4) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 1: The NTSB wants truckers screened for sleep apnea
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The National Transportation Safety Board wants commercial trucking companies to do more to ensure they hire safe drivers.

Due to a rising number of fatal accidents caused by sleep apnea, the NTSB has recommended the trucking industry conduct screening of drivers for the condition.

Sleep apnea is a medical condition that causes someone to stop breathing repeatedly during their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times during the night. Sufferers experience fragmented and poor quality sleep, which often results in persistent drowsiness throughout the day.

"Sleep apnea is a problem where there is some sort of obstruction in the airways where it causes a person to wake up literally hundreds of times during the night. The problem with that is it gives them a lot of daytime sleepiness and they become a dangerous driver," said CBS4 Medical Editor Dr. Dave Hnida.

A report from the NTSB cited a January 2008 bus accident near the Four Corners as an example of safety issues related to the sleep disorder. Nine people were killed and 43 others injured when the driver, who was suffering the effects of sleep apnea, drove the bus off a mountainside.

Sleepiness has been something the trucking industry has lived with for decades. Drivers told CBS4 they try to plan for it.

"Cat nap, maybe about 5 minutes, ten minutes at most. It helps out a lot," said Ruben Lueveno, truck driver.

The Federal Railroad and Aviation Administration said they are drafting new rules to consider the danger of sleep apnea. However, medical experts believe applying the same rules to commercial trucking may be much harder to follow through on.

"It's gonna be really hard to identify people who do have sleep apnea unless they volunteer information that they are a heavy snorer or do have excessive daytime drowsiness. Otherwise you will have to do sleep studies on everyone who is applying for a commercial driver's license," said Hnida.

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