NTSB Recommends Sleep Apnea Screening for Truck Drivers to Prevent Accidents
The National Transportation Safety Board is finally making the kinds of recommendations that Indiana truck accident lawyers have been looking forward to.
The agency has sent letters to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, recommending screenings for sleep apnea in commercial truck drivers. The NTSB has also sent similar letters to the Coast Guard advising screenings for the disorder in merchant ship pilots, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration, and transit system agencies around the US.
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder in which a person suffers from periods of breathing difficulties during sleep. These episodes of respiratory difficulties may occur just a few times in an hour, or as many as 30 times in 60 minutes. A person suffering from sleep apnea suffers from interrupted sleep, and as a consequence, feels listless and drowsy the next day.
A condition like this would be dangerous in any motorist, but is especially dangerous in commercial truck and bus drivers, who operate large and heavy vehicles. Fatigued drivers in fact, are linked to some of the deadliest truck accidents in the country every year. Sleep experts and Indiana truck accident attorneys have been aware that that sleep apnea is a major factor in driver fatigue, but we have been disappointed at the lack of serious attention paid to this problem. Now, the NTSB recommendation gives us hope that mandatory sleep apnea screenings for commercial truck drivers will soon be a reality.
Every year, more than 5,000 people are killed in truck accidents across the country. Last year, 136 people died in tractor trailer accidents in Indiana, many of these caused by drivers too tired and drowsy to focus on the road.
As Indiana truck accident lawyers, we believe that mandatory screenings for sleep apnea, combined with stricter enforcement of medical certification rules for truck drivers, can help lower those rates.
