18 Wheels of Danger
It’s a fact. Every day 14 Americans are killed in trucker linked accidents — scores more injured. Every day.
It is also a fact that the average American trucker will not live enough time to collect social security.
The profile of the largest number of sleep apnea victims, poor diet, weight problems, poor health practices, fit the profile of your typical trucker who makes truck stop buffets a contest, and takes much less time for sleep compared to those who aren’t paid by each mile.
Nationwide medical studies report that seven out of 10 18 wheel operators classify as being obese. One Midwest transportation business just recently reported their condition to be worse than that. Their own CEO said he thinks nearly half of his truck drivers were identified to be morbidly obese.
An advertisement from the Sleep4Safety.com group in the present issue of national trucking magazine Driver Health(circulation 100,000) states that death isn’t a kind of retirement and asks its truck driving readers, did you know the typical trucker will die before their 61st birthday? Sobering and definitely food for thought when you glance in the rear view mirror at the 18 wheeler coming fast behind you.
Sleep4Safety CEO Sigurjon Kristjannson suggests an 18 wheel truck operated by a sleep-deprived driver can be as unsafe as a drunk driver heading the wrong direction along the interstate. Imagine, he suggests, that three of each and every 10 truckers you see on the highway today most likely possess the situational attention equivalent to having .06 to .08 alcohol within their blood system. They’re, in a very real sense, he states, driving intoxicated — not an drinking fueled intoxication, but one created by chronic sleep deprivation. Consider, how far an 18 wheeler, traveling 60 miles an hour, travels in the brief moment the operator nods off and what can happen during that time.
Dr Jeffrey Durmer, Atlanta, identified in the publication as «Dr Sleep» and also the Chief Medical Officer at Sleep4Safety urges sleep testing to recognize those drivers with snoring problems and then provide on-the-job treatment. Driver Health publisher Andy Shefsky writes that his goal would be to raise the typical truck driver life span age from just shy of 61 to 77, to the average American life expectancy.
Accomplishing this will require 18 wheel pilots to eat well, exercise, and check to make sure, as basic as it sounds, they’re getting enough good sleep. And, if not, to accept non-intrusive treatment on the job.
The cost of failing to achieve this, goes far beyond the equipment repair and replacement to the astronomical medical bills, soaring insurance rates for the companies to the 14 people who, every day, lose their life in a trucking accident among each three being the trucker himself.
Get enough rest and hope that trucker coming up in the rear of you also did.
Pithy Quotes: “You never know when checkout time is.” Val Dempsey, CEI, Atlanta
Bud Carter is the publisher of the motivational quotes book entitled Chairman Carter’s Collection of Pithy Quotes (Quotes intended to boost your bottom line, or, at the least, your disposition). He is furthermore the Senior Chariman of Vistage Atlanta.
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