Truck driver fatigue is a serious threat to public safety. And, it is a disturbingly common cause of fatal truck crashes. Yet it is 100% preventable.
In this blog post, I will discuss what it is, how dangerous it is, how the hours-of-service rules were enacted to combat it and tips for preventing it.
What Is Truck Driver Fatigue?
Truck driver fatigue is a dangerous condition that occurs when a commercial driver becomes physically or mentally exhausted from long hours on the road, lack of rest, or disrupted sleep schedules. While it’s not a medical disorder, it significantly impairs a driver’s alertness, judgment and ability to react quickly.
Fatigue can be caused by:
When truck driver fatigue leads to an accident, the consequences can be devastating. That’s why federal rules are in place to limit driving hours and protect everyone on the road. Unfortunately, fatigue remains one of the leading causes of serious truck crashes.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the federal agency responsible for policing and regulating truckers and transportation companies to ensure they operate safely on the nation’s roadways, describes this condition as the “result of physical or mental exertion that impairs performance.”
How dangerous is Truck Driver Fatigue?
Studies have found it to be a more potent driving impairment than the influence of drugs or alcohol — yet a wide number of truck drivers bend the rules to maximize their time behind the wheel.
The FMCSA reports that “[r]esearch has indicated that being awake for 18 hours is comparable to having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 percent, which is legally intoxicated and leaves you at equal risk for a crash.”
Similarly, the National Sleep Foundation reports:
“Studies have shown that sleeping only 4-5 hours in a 24 hour period increases a driver’s crash risk as much as a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05, and getting less than 4 hours of sleep increases crash risk as much as a BAC of roughly 0.12.”
A serious threat to public safety
The U.S. Transportation Secretary has observed that nearly 4,000 people die in large truck crashes each year and “[d]river fatigue is a leading factor in large truck crashes.”
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)’s “Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts” study found that fatigue was a “driver impairment-related factor” in fatal large truck crashes between 2019 and 2021 with the following frequency:
- Was a factor for 72 of 4,977 operators of large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2019
- Was a factor for 68 of 4,754 operators of large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2020
- Was a factor for 63 of 5,633 operators of large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2021
(Source: FMCSA, Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts 2021, published November 2023, People, “Table 31. Drivers of Large Trucks in Fatal Crashes by Distraction-Related and Impairment-Related Factors, 2019-2021”)
How To Prevent Truck Driver Fatigue
In an effort to prevent truck driver fatigue, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) created hours-of-service rules which regulate the amount of time each workday that truck drivers can spend driving and/or otherwise performing tasks that qualify as being “on-duty.”
For example, under 49 CFR § 395.3(b), drivers are limited to 60 hours of compensated work in a seven-day period or 70 hours in an eight-day period.
In explaining the need for hours-of-service rules, the U.S. Transportation Secretary explained that one of the significant challenges with combating truck driver fatigue is that in addition to impairing truckers’ ability to drive, exhaustion impairs their ability to assess and evaluate their own tiredness levels:
“That fatigue leads drivers to have slower reaction times and a reduced ability to assess situations quickly. One of the most dangerous elements of fatigue is how quickly it can sneak up on vehicle operators, be they car drivers or truck drivers. The research revealed that truck drivers (like most people) often can’t assess their own fatigue levels accurately and are therefore unaware that their performance has degraded. Too often, fatigued drivers fail to notice that they are drifting between lanes.”
For the truckers, breaking the hours-of-service rules can mean the difference between putting food on the table, or being next in the unemployment line.
Helping truck accident lawyers better understand hours-of-service regulations
This is a hot topic right now for the trucking industry and truck accident lawyers, and for a very good reason.
A tired commercial vehicle driver is as impaired as an intoxicated driver and exhaustion is one of the most common causes of truck accidents, both in Michigan and across the country.
As stated above, preventing fatigue starts and ends with transportation companies and truck drivers following the hours-of-service rules established by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
Found at 49 CFR § 395.3 and 49 CFR § 395.8, they are some of the most important federal regulations for lawyers to remember in any truck crash case.
Knowledge of hours-of-service regulations, coupled with a careful study of a truck driver’s record of duty status as reflected in the data from his or her “electronic logging device” (which replaced written log books in December 2017) can reveal exhaustion.
Truck Driver Fatigue Accident Lawyer Tip: Driving Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Working
Drivers are limited to a total of 14 hours of work in a single “on-duty” period. (49 CFR § 395.3(a)(2)) This type of non-driving activity could include all time:
- Waiting to be dispatched at a terminal
- Doing a CDL pre-trip inspection
- Loading and unloading
- Repairing the truck
- Waiting for the truck to be repaired
- Submitting to a DOT roadside inspection
Virtually any work performed on behalf of a motor carrier should be added to a driver’s 14-hour daily work limit.
However, even work performed for another company or organization will count toward a driver’s on-duty period – even if it’s completely unrelated to the trucking industry.
Under 49 CFR § 395.2(9), “on- duty” time means performing “any compensated work for a person who is not a motor carrier.”
This is confirmed by the official interpretation of 49 CFR § 395.2 which appears on the FMCSA’s website:
- Question 11: “Must non-transportation-related work for a motor carrier be recorded as on-duty time?”
- Guidance: “Yes. All work for a motor carrier, whether compensated or not, must be recorded as on-duty time. The term “work” as used in the definition of “on-duty time” in 49 CFR 395.2 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) is not limited to driving or other non-transportation-related employment.”
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