\u201cI\u2019m takin\u2019 little white pills and my eyes are open wide.\u201d\u00a0 Remember that?\u00a0 \u201cSix Days on the Road,\u201d composed in 1963.\u00a0 An anthem celebrating the great American truck driver, knight of the road, proud and free, lean and mean.<\/p>\n
The era of little white pills probably ended about the same time as the advent of random workplace drug testing.\u00a0\u00a0 Today\u2019s truck driver is more likely than the rest of us to be overweight and out of shape, and has a good chance of suffering from sleep apnea.\u00a0 An argument is raging between truckers and federal regulators about whether to force overweight truck drivers to take sleep tests.<\/p>\n
Dr. David Lyman of Concentra Medical Centers spoke about this recently to the New Mexico Workers’ Compensation Association.\u00a0 He said truck drivers over a certain weight and neck circumference have a 94% likelihood of sleep apnea.\u00a0 (I hid the tape measure in my purse.)<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Transportation, Dr. Lyman says, wants to add new requirements to the mandatory screenings for over-the-road drivers, who are required to have medical clearance.\u00a0 The industry is resisting, he says.\u00a0 The tests are expensive.\u00a0 So one area of discussion is whether to test only overweight drivers or all of them.<\/p>\n
Nobody is in favor of truck drivers falling asleep on top of 18 wheels, just as nobody is in favor of truckers suffering heart attacks while driving.\u00a0 We can agree on this.<\/p>\n
However, it is possible to hypothesize that seasoned drivers may have enough knowledge, experience and well-honed instincts to compensate for the effects of poor quality sleep.\u00a0 It is predicted that the U.S. will face a national shortage of an estimated 400,000 professional truck drivers by 2011 or 2012; this is according to reports from FTR (Freight Transport Research) Associates.\u00a0\u00a0 One reason given is the disqualification of drivers for health reasons.<\/p>\n
And we could observe that every time a new safety requirement is added to trucking or any other industry, it adds cost that as a nation we can\u2019t necessarily afford.\u00a0 The cost of transportation ends up not only in your grocery bill and my grocery bill, but in the price of the groceries you and I are increasingly asked to donate to help feed Americans who are out of work because the economic recovery demands that business operate more efficiently.<\/p>\n
This is a familiar argument. New safety rules are always being proposed, not necessarily in response to a new safety threat, but because improving safety is some people\u2019s job, and it is not their job to assess the costs or the social and economic impacts.<\/p>\n
This pattern recurs over and over.\u00a0 A change is made in the economy to improve efficiency and another change comes along and sops up all the savings.\u00a0 Sometimes the result is a net improvement in our overall wellbeing, and sometimes it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 The rules that are enacted may depend not on their merit or value but on who has the more powerful lobby.\u00a0 This is the economic equivalent of watching a cat chase its tail — only it\u2019s dizzying, not cute, it\u2019s deadly serious and it is a vital concern for the future of our nation.<\/p>\n
America needs to figure out how to be lean and mean again.\u00a0 In the case of truck drivers, that\u2019s not metaphorical.<\/p>\n
Triple Spaced Again, \u00a9 New Mexico News Services 2010; posted in 2011<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m takin\u2019 little white pills and my eyes are open wide.\u201d\u00a0 Remember that?\u00a0 \u201cSix Days on the Road,\u201d composed in 1963.\u00a0 An anthem celebrating the great American truck driver, knight of the road, proud and free, lean and mean. The … Continue reading