1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156 
Campaign highlights dangers of fatigue
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
e by Steve Banner
Hauliers must wake up to the dangers associated with driver tiredness, says Dr Paul Jackson of AWAKE, which specialises in helping firms combat employee fatigue.
Jackson claims that fatigue kills one truck driver every week.
Driver tiredness is thought to cause at least 10% of all road accidents and one in five accidents on motorways and trunk roads, says the University of Loughborough's Sleep Research Centre.
It's a problem recognised by the Freight Transport Association, which recently launched a 'Driver Sleepiness Kills' campaign, In conjunction with AWAKE and the Association of Chief Police Officers, The ETA has also run a joint exercise with Tayside Police during which officers stopped trucks on the A9 and A92. They gave the drivers ETA literature on how to avoid fatigue, and how to cope with it if it occurs.
So what can operators do to tackle the problem? ''For a start, they should mount an Internal awareness campaign to highlight the danger," says Jackson.
Shift work Is a necessity in road transport, but can lead to employee drowsiness, so they should revise their shift patterns too, he suggests. "The most dangerous pattern is the backward rotating one, where you're asking workers to switch from late, to afternoon, to morning shifts," he contends.
The forward rotating one, which works in the opposite direction, Is less dangerous."
The old idea that some individuals are 'morning people' and others are 'night people' isn't a myth. Jackson contends. Some employees suffer more from daytime drowsiness than others, and firms should assess them to see who is most at risk.
"We recently worked with a company with 60 drivers, and found that over 60% of the fault accidents Its trucks were involved in were down to just six of them," he says. "It was because they were on shifts that didn't suit their natural rhythms."