Perceived fatigue symptoms among military truck drivers.

The current study is part of a large-scale survey conducted among military truck drivers from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) Transport Centre. In this study we attempted to determine to what extent drivers are (a) aware of feeling too fatigued to continue driving, (b) aware of their performance decrement due to fatigue, (c) able to provide a temporal aspect to their performance decrement and (d) aware of cues that reflect their level of fatigue. Our results lead us to believe that drivers use more subjective and physiological cues to estimate their fatigue level than they use performance decrement ones. Possibly because they reach a high level of fatigue prior to their observation of performance decrement. It is possible that when performance decrement cues occur, drivers are more likely to consider their fatigue level as higher (and use them as immediate cues) but this claim requires further validation. The decision making process and the parameters drivers use in their decision to stop need to be identified. It appears that elapsed time by itself is not a single parameter in this decision. This study also enhances some major differences between novice/young drivers and expert drivers. Novice/young drivers experience more incidents of boredom and lack of concentration, and are less likely to stop driving when fatigued. For the covering abstract see ITRD E113725 (C 22328 CD-ROM).