This project identified factors related to causes of fatigue and ways to manage fatigue in Teamster commercial drivers working for the Motor Freight Carriers Association. The goal of the project was to identify best practices for managing fatigue that may have potential application to other motor vehicle operators. An 11-page scannable survey instrument (OMB No. 2126-0029) was developed and mailed to 5,741 Teamster drivers (2,741 million milers and 3,000 non-million milers). Responses from 1,128 million miler drivers were compared to those of 1,152 non-million miler drivers who had driven a million or more miles accident free. Drivers averaged 53 years of age and 27.8 years operating trucks. They were generally white, non-Hispanic, married males. Million mile drivers were older by an average of 3 years, had 4.6 years more experience driving a truck, and were more likely to be married than non-million mile drivers. Both the rate of obesity and the rate of tobacco use among Teamster drivers were above the national average. Drivers reported less sleep on workdays than on non-workdays but appeared to understand the critical importance of adequate sleep taken prior starting a driving run—sleep was the major activity most engaged in prior to driving. Proportionally more non-million milers than million milers reported driving at night and that their work start times and schedules varied “quite a lot.” Million milers were less likely to sleep during the daytime, and they had significantly longer sleep durations during a typical 24-hour work period and immediately prior to driving than non-million milers. The two groups did not differ in sleep duration on non-work days, which averaged 8.1 hours. This was more than an hour additional sleep than they reported for work days. In order to identify best practices for managing fatigue, Stepwise Logistical Discriminant Analysis was used to evaluate independent predictors of million miler status. Relative to non-million milers, million miler status was associated with more years of driving experience, less variable work schedules, less night driving, taking the first break earlier when driving, less smoking, and less caffeine and cell phone / CB use to manage fatigue while driving. These findings suggest that the lessons learned from this study regarding “best practices” include the following: regularize work schedules when possible, reduce night driving when possible, encourage taking a rest break sooner when driving, and reduce smoking. In addition, the results suggest that research is needed on ways to (1) help obese drivers lose even a modest amount of weight, which can have substantial health benefits, and (2) identify drivers’ vulnerability to fatigue and determining if matching driver fatigue vulnerability to work schedule would help manage fatigue even more effectively. (Author/publisher)
Abstract