Car Hauling & Sleep Apnea

Car transporters on the roads of the United States deal with all kinds of elements during trips that can cause them to loose valuable sleep and slowly build up a sleep debt that can cause deadly fatigue to set in and become a problem that can increase the chances of an accident for car hauling professionals that have to deal with these elements.

Everything from irregular pick-up and delivery schedules, to unrealistic broker and shipper demands, and even things like background noise keeping them awake at the truck stops where they attempt to get a few hours of sleep often for many automobile transport drivers keeps them from getting the hours of rest they need to maintain a consistent level of safety while conducting auto transport activities on the highways of the United States. In addition, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association indicated during a recent conference on sleep apnea in the transport industry in Baltimore, Maryland on May 11-12 that other elements often arise that keep drivers from getting the sleep they need. That things like the lack of safe parking spaces, anti-idling regulations in some regions of the United States, and even troublesome working girls knocking on the doors of car tranports at all hours of the night often prevent drivers from sleeping. That these elements were never taken into account with the Hours-of-Service rules in place and that changes need to be made to take these elements into consideration.

It appears that maybe the United States Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration should maybe sit down and have a serious talk with the professionals driving the transport vehicles on the roads of America about some of these elements. This is the only way that these elements might be able to be taken into consideration in the Hours-Of-Service rules and any changes that might be useful could be made. The FMCSA has a history of occasionally working with and listening to the concerns of the transport professionals operating on the roads of the United States, so we can probably expect a few changes to be made in the Hours-Of-Service rules in order to try to solve some of these problems in the days ahead in the century of the environment.