Quote:
Originally Posted by golfhobo
And this was done because the overwhelming majority of medical professionals determined and agreed (after EXTENSIVE testing and research) that the average person AND the average trucker needed between 7 and 7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep daily to avoid a compounding affect of sleep deprivation leading to slower reaction times, lower awareness, etc.
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I've been around for long enough to have acquired a healthy suspicion with regard to all who are labeled experts. The best I ever heard is that an "expert" is somebody who's a long way from home because at home they don't let him talk.
I don't believe it. The testing and research is junk science and means nothing at all. A trucker who lives a life of splitting his bunk time and getting rest wherever he needs it probably gains faster reaction times, not slower. It's the same thing as the daily required nutrients they print on canned food. It's meaningless.
Under split sleeper berth rules, mandatory eight hour stretches of sleep are not legally required, but drivers found time to get those large blocks of sleep anyway, required or not, because they wanted them. I've been looking at this for a long time and have noticed that truck stops and rest areas fill up full at night and have been for a long time. That is because most drivers want, and get, a full night's rest whenever they can, regardless of regulations. Maybe things were different fifteen or twenty years ago, but today, drivers seek rest. They don't need regulations that categorize bunk time as work hours. Nobody needs that. It's dangerous. Sleep time is never work time. The present law is dangerously out of conformity with reality.
What is important is getting rest when needed.
The most dangerous part of the mandatory eight hour sleep break is the part that counts blocks of bunk time shorter than eight hours as a driver's working hours. That is an insane bit of legislation. No driver wants to, or can afford to, sacrifice his working hours. Therefore, in order to stay legal under the present regs, he has to skip sleep breaks and naps. Another way of stating this is that he must continue to drive when sleepy. That is the greatest danger of all and has nothing to do with "cumulative sleep deficit."
I'm not on this forum to wail about the present regs or look for sympathy because I find them difficult to live with. I'm writing about them because I'm trying to get the split sleeper berth provision restored as part of HOS regulations. I'm trying to find drivers who will continue to contact their legislators and get the present regs reversed.
Here is the gist of it: The most important, and most dangerous reality regarding the present regs is the practice of forgoing needed sleep breaks because the time counts against a driver's working hours. That dangerous aspect of the present regs trumps anything else.
Split time was part of the trucking regs for 70 years, for good reason. Good reason goes out the window these days, and not enough people do anything about. Contact your legislators.
stonefly