Federal rules designed to keep long-haul truck drivers in the United States awake and alert at the wheel, which were relaxed by an administration committed to deregulation, returned to the spotlight again on December 2 in an article published in the New York Times. In the debate before the changes were made, ideological arguments drowned out warnings about the risks.

The warnings are well supported. Ergonomics research shows that fatigue increases the risk of accidents and decreases efficiency and productivity. The Times article was the first in a series about the impact of President George W. Bush’s deregulation strategy, which has repealed enforcement or completion of hundreds of federal rules.

Reviewing the history of trucking regulations, the Times explained that federal officials proposed tighter rules for service hours in 2000 that would allow long-haul drivers to work a maximum of 12 hours a day, and require them to take 10-hour breaks between shifts. The proposed rules also required installation of electronic devices to replace driver logs.

When the Republican administration took control in 2001, according to the Times, regulators rejected the tightening proposal and did the opposite, relaxing the rules on how long truckers could be on the road.

The article related one incident where a truck driver who had worked in the cab nearly 12 hours, eight of them driving nonstop, hit a car and killed its driver. It describes trucking as America’s most treacherous industry, as measured by overall deaths and injuries from truck accidents. The fatality rate for truck-related accidents remains nearly double that involving only cars, safety and insurance groups say.

And the remaining curbs on drivers – and their employers – can be circumvented, according to the article: “The practice of falsifying driver hours is an open secret in the industry; truckers routinely refer to their logs as ‘comic books.’ Fines are small. The federal motor carrier agency does not have the staff to monitor closely 700,000 businesses and almost eight million trucks.”

The Times article goes on to list reasons that the relaxation of the standards in the trucking industry is going to mean few curbs on the number of hours employers expect drivers to be at the wheel - or when. The time of day or night is a significant safety issue. Experts say the body's natural circadian rhythm produces maximum drowsiness between 3 and 6 am.

The May 2005 issue of The Ergonomics Report™, a subscription publication for professionals in ergonomics-related fields, reviewed the research into the risks associated with fatigue across a number of industries. It notes that after one of several fatal rail crashes in the United States investigators talked about train operators who were "drunk with exhaustion." Operators have likened on-the-job fatigue to being in a constant state of jet lag, according to the Report, and frequent derailments, crashes and toxic spills from tankers tell the story of the consequences.

The research has led to ergonomic principles for designing workdays and shifts to minimize fatigue, and the Report noted that many employers put them to use. The description of trucking as the most treacherous industry suggests the business owners are more attracted to the ideology of deregulation than practices that minimize risks.

Sources: The New York Times; The Ergonomics Report™