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What are the COSTS OF DRIVER FATIGUE ?
Who does it affect and how?
Fatigue in truck driving is a major part of the job that can cause serious accidents.
Fatigue is a fully avoidable and unacceptable road safety hazard.
- Drivers can lose their life or be seriously injured
- A driver’s family can suffer and their lives be affected
- Drivers can lose their job and ability to drive trucks
- Higher insurance premiums will have to be paid
- Employers will lose money and maybe contracts
- Vehicles can be off the road for long periods, or even need to be replaced
- Consignors and consignees can lose work or have to lay off workers when poor scheduling causes fatigue-related accidents.
Coffs Harbour Workplace Assessments want Heavy Vehicle drivers to be safe on our highways
Truck drivers have to be professional and concentrate on the job so that they know where they are in the traffic flow; and always plan to make safe adjustments to allow for other drivers who don’t understand the dangerous situations they create. Concentrating is the hardest part of the job when the road is rolling past and so it is fatigue that is one of a truck driver’s biggest enemies.
DRIVER FATIGUE can severely impair judgment – and it can affect anyone…
and one of the symptoms is the decreased ability to judge our own level of tiredness!!!
Loss of Alertness – means you cannot respond quickly and safely to the task. You may miss spotting dangers. You may be slow at controlling the vehicle, so it runs off the road occasionally or you have a near miss. You are less vigilant and slow to make decisions.
Drowsy Driving – drowsiness means feeling sleepy, but not actually being asleep. The fact is that if you feel drowsy you may actually drift in and out of sleep briefly without knowing it. Drivers have been studied when drowsy and found to be asleep for many seconds at a time, and then wake up, without being aware of it. This accounts for some “run off the road” crashes. It is quite common.
Falling Asleep at the Wheel – this is obvious and happens in a number of crashes. These are typically very severe single vehicle, crashes where there has been no attempt by the driver to control the vehicle. The driver was clearly completely unaware of events before the crash. It is not often drivers will report that they were asleep but the evidence tells.
Poor Memory – Being reasonably fatigued also affects people’s memory. For example, they may suddenly become aware they have travelled 200 km without knowing it. This is not a problem in itself, but forgetting to make a delivery or forgetting where things are is a big problem in a hectic schedule.
Bad Mood – Being very fatigued also makes people irritable. This may be unpleasant for them but it is even more unpleasant for those around them. Regular fatigue makes drivers’ domestic life very difficult and they may find that their partners do not put up with them for long.
Fatigue is particularly dangerous because symptoms vary between drivers, but they can include any or all of the following:
- Yawning
- Poor concentration
- Tired or sore eyes
- Restlessness
- Drowsiness
- Slow reactions
- Boredom
- Feeling irritable
- Making fewer and larger steering corrections
- Missing road signs
- Having difficulty in staying in the lane
- Micro sleeps
PLEASE TAKE CARE – KEEP THE ROADS SAFE FOR OUR FAMILIES
