Hi there smart drivers, Rick with Smart Drive Test talking to you today about fatigue. Fatigue is
one of the most prevalent problems amongst truck and bus driver. You run a
lot of nights, you run a lot of long hours.
In the nineteen nineties when I was driving truck, I was operating - running back and
forth to New York City two times a week out of Cambridge, Ontario. It's about an eight
hour run. There was a night about two o'clock in the morning, I was running down highway
17. Come up over the top of the hill; it had been snowing a little bit. There was a
slick bit of snow on the road. I
looked down the hill. There's a couple of cars down at the bottom of the hill with
brake lights on. I was on cruise and no doubt I had been micro-sleeping for
little bit along the way. I was exhausted!
I don't know what happened, but anyway I let go of the steering wheel: "it's all
over!" Because the trailer started fishtailing at the same time. Somehow I ended up at the bottom
of the hill; the cars were gone & the truck was going down the road in a straight
line. So rule of fatigue: never drive faster than your guardian angels can fly!
We'll be right back to talk to you about fatigue.
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Welcome back, Rick with Smart Drive Test, talking to you today about fatigue. Some of the factors that
contribute to to fatigue are noise, lack of oxygen, bright lights, and stress. All
of these things can make you more tired and affect your ability to do your job
at work.
Noise - some of these trucks are really loud. Wear hearing protection in the
truck, if the truck is really loud, or it's got a set of straight pipes, or those
types of things on it. So think about the amount of noise that you are exposed to.
Anything over 85 decibels is going to affect your hearing. There are a lots of
old truck drivers out there who are wearing hearing aids and are very deaf,
because they've been exposed to that constant drone of diesel engines for
long periods of time. So think about how much noise you're exposed to in that
truck or bus. Next thing: bright lights. Turn your dash lights down at night,
look away from bright oncoming lights. Try not to flash people with your high
beams if they forget to turn their high beams down. Just look at the fog line on the
highway and look away so you don't get that bright light in your eyes.
Stress - we all have busy lives, we're all trying to manage stress. In particular,
for long haul truck drivers, you're trying to manage a life over social media and
phone. It's difficult, it's tough, but try to manage that. Try to figure out how to
do that. We'll talk about some other techniques you can do to deal with
stress
and how to manage your life.
Lack of oxygen - make sure you got good air flow in the cab of the truck. One of
the ways that I do it is I either roll down the passenger window; if you're
running a road tractor, there'll be vents in the bunk. Keep the vents open in the
bunk - keep lots of fresh air circulating through the cab. All this will help you
combat fatigue.
The techniques and tips that you can employ to combat fatigue - route planning.
Route planning is probably the number one method that you can combat fatigue
and sleep deprivation while driving truck. Particularly for those long
hauling. If you can figure out how far you can go in a day and where you need
to stop. You're better able to find truck stops and rest areas and those types of
places that you can park your truck and get proper rest. In Canada, it's a lot
harder than it is in the United States, because truck stops and rest areas tend
to be a lot more prevalent in the United States. In Canada they're pretty tough!
There's a big one in Kamloops - the Petro-Canada. If you don't end up there at
six o'clock at night, it's really unlikely that you're gonna find a space
to park.
You don't want to end up in a place at night when you're dead beat tired trying
to find a place to park your truck and there just isn't anything available and you
end up driving around all over the place.
Truck stops - if they're bigger ones you're gonna find a place to get in
there.
Rest areas - maybe, maybe not? If you don't, and you're in an urban centre, you can always
go to the industrial areas. You can park on the roads in the industrial areas, and
those types of places to get a good night's rest. Exercise - particularly for
long haul drivers and those drivers working long hours, it's tough to get
exercise. We sit for long, long periods of time, but you need to take a break every
three or four hours. Get out of the truck, walk around the truck, go for a walk. Do
whatever you do. Some drivers take their bicycle. They keep it in the sleeper and go
for ride on their bicycle. Whatever you can do to keep active. It is tough, but you
know, do what you can.
A great website "Trucker fitness." He's got some great tips on how to stay fit, how
to keep yourself active while driving in the truck. Reduce noise - we talked about that
earlier. Noise reduction headphones will help with that and you know, just those
little plug that go in your ears and those types of things. All of that will
expose you to less amount of noise. One of the other things that's really helping
is better sleepers. I drove a Peterbilt 579 in the fall. These better sleepers - you can
turn the motor off - you're not in the cab, you're not being vibrated around
because the engines running. They have a battery pack, or an auxillary power unit
that heats the sleeper and this provides a better sleep. I was amazed at how
comfortable the sleepers were now that you're not having the engine run. It's
like being in a bedroom - they're nice and warm, cozy, and you get a really good
night's sleep. So these new sleepers are really going a long way to helping truck
drivers get better sleep. Some of the other things you need to understand
about fatigue is that sleep debt. You can go into sleep debt if you're running
long hours for long periods of time. You're going to go into sleep debt; you
cannot bank up sleep. You can't go home and sleep for a couple of days and go
back on the road. It doesn't work like that, but you can go into sleep debt and sleep
debt will contribute to poor sleeping quality during your drives out on the
highway. As well, think about what you're eating. Your diet and those types of
things. There's all kinds of websites about good healthy eating. If you're eating
heavy meals—french fries and hamburgers—it's going to sit heavy in your stomach, it's
going to make you tired.
Think about that when you're driving, especially right after meals that you're
going to be more prone to fatigue. Circadian rhythm is basically your
biological clock in your body.
The times of the day that you're gonna be sleepy is basically 1 to 5 in the afternoon.
You would be surprised at the number of people that fall asleep in the middle of
the afternoon while they're driving their vehicle. Single-vehicle crashes are
often hard to investigate because causes that contribute to the crash
cannot be explained. But lots of it is people falling asleep in the middle of
the afternoon. The other time is 1 to 5 o'clock in the morning. I knew when I was
running long haul that I needed to be in the sleeper at 1 to 5 in the morning.
Those were the hours of the day that I really needed to have my sleep. Sleep
apnea as a sleeping disorder that affects people who tend to be over weight,
who have breathing problems and other types of physical disorders. Truck driver
suffer from sleep apnea at a much higher percentage than the normal population -
or the regular population. Normal is a kind of loose word, but if you're having
difficulty sleeping and you're always feeling tired you might wanna go to your
general doctor— your GP—and get yourself checked out and see if in fact you are
suffering from sleep apnea. Because it could be something that's affecting your
quality of sleep, especially if you're feeling tired all the time.
Know when you need to sleep during the day. As I said, I needed to sleep
between one and five in the morning. If I wasn't in bed between one and five in
the morning, it was pretty tough for me to stay awake. No amount of coffee was
going to combat that. If you got the windows down & the radio cranked, that's
probably a good sign that maybe you need to pull over and get a bit of sleep.
Playing loud music, chewing your fingernails - as well, chewing my
fingernails! If I knew when I was driving truck that I started chewing my
fingernails, I needed to be off the road within 10 minutes. That was a sure sign that
I was going to fall asleep. Singing, banging the steering wheel, your head
tilting forward like this - you're having micro sleeps, and they've
shown in studies that micro sleeps - you'll fall asleep for three or four
seconds at a time and then wake up. So if you're always fighting that and trying
to stay awake, that's one of the sure signs that you are falling asleep and need
to pull over and get some sleep. Strategies for staying awake: talk to
somebody —get a hands-free cellphone— talk to them on the CB (Citizen-Band Radio). That'll help you to stay
awake. Get a few minutes sleep, even if it's twenty minutes, an hour in the
sleeper. Get a little bit of sleep - all that will help. Lots of ventilation in
the cab as I said earlier. Plan your route, plan we're you're gonna stop. Get your
rest areas and plan the number of hours that you're gonna get some rest,
especially in Canada. Because truck stops are few and far between and often they're
crowded after six o'clock at night. Finally when I used to drive truck I had
a 10 pound bag of carrots down beside the seat. I knew that if I ate it would
keep me awake. But again you don't want to be eating garbage; you don't want to
be eating junk. Carrots, rice cakes, those types of things all of that, you know, you
can eat those for a while. Eating will keep you awake. So that's another way.
Audio books: go to the library get some audiobooks. Listen to stories while
you're going up and down the road. It keeps your mind active. If your mind is active,
it's probably more on the task of driving.
In conclusion, piecemeal work—getting paid by the mile—getting paid by the
load - all this is going to encourage drivers to infringe upon their sleep and
it is imperative that drivers manage your sleep,
manage your fatigue because logbook laws, like traffic laws, are not going to keep you
safe. So it's up to the driver to have some information about circadian rhythms -
what time of the day that your body is naturally inclined to go to sleep?
Mid-afternoon, middle of the night, 1 to 5—both times, a.m. and p.m. As well, sleep
apnea. These are the disorders that people suffer from and truck drivers
suffer at a higher percentage than the general population. So know about sleep
apnea. If you display any of the signs of sleep apnea, maybe go and see your GP,
general doctor, and maybe see if you suffer from sleep apnea because your
quality of sleep is important.
Healthy meals, exercise, managing stress - all of these things will go a long way
to truck drivers and bus drivers managing fatigue. It's a little easier
for a truck driver, especially if you're running with the road tractor to jump in
the bunk and get twenty minutes, half an hour's sleep. Bus drivers run on
schedules and when I first started driving bus, and I was running overnight
it was a little tougher for me to sort of manage my sleep because the bus ran on
schedule. And you had to be at a certain place at a certain time so there were
lots of rest areas, especially at the beginning, where I was getting out and
running around the bus trying to stay awake at night. So some of the techniques
that you can employ to keep yourself awake - talk to somebody else on your
hands free cell phone. Talking to somebody else on your CB, eating,
as I said I always had a 10 pound bag of carrots down beside the seat and I was
always gnawing away on carrots. I think a couple of times I even turned a little bit orange.
So think about all that,
think about managing your fatigue and going up and down the road. Route
planning - keep all of that in mind. Question for my smart drivers: how do you manage
your fatigue? Leave a comment down in the comment section.
Share that with the rest of the smart drivers - all of that goes along way for
the new drivers that we're trying to help out here, and for the veterans, that'll really
pass on some knowledge to some of the other drivers.
Leave a comment, all of that helps us out. If you like the video, subscribe, share
leave a comment down on the comment box. If like what you saw here,
check out the log book course over at my website. You can find the link here. The log book course
consists of all of the instructional videos, written down rules and
regulations for log books - both basic and advanced videos. You can find them here
on the YouTube channel as well.
The exercises, the courses on my website include all kinds of questions related
specifically to log books - specifically to the exercises. There's two exercises
for you to fill out. As well, there's a work cycle calculator - that's free, included in
the course - the logbook course. And at the end of the log book course, you'll
receive a certification of completion. All of that for less than $25. Head over to
my website, check out the logbook course, both for Canada and the United States,
depending on which country your in. I'm Rick with Smart Drive Test. Thanks very much
for watching. Remember, pick the best answer, not necessarily the right answer.
Have a great day! Bye now.
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