True-Life Story
A trucker arrived at about 6pm from a 5-Day delivery trip covering a distance of about 3,300 Kilometers to and fro. Upon arrival, he got the news that there was an opportunity for a quick local delivery. Straightway, he joined the queue to load. By 10pm, loading was done. In view of the prevailing traffic regulation in some parts of the country that forbids trailer traffic during the day, making the trip that same night was within regulation. He left the loading bay and hit the highway. Estimated distance to and fro is put at 110kilometers. He had not driven for more than 30 minutes when the accident occurred. He veered off completely from the highway and ran straight into another truck parked on the road shoulder. His own truck was a complete write-off. He and the driver’s assistant had multiple bone fracture that was going to send them both into four (4) months medical rehabilitation.
Reason for the accident (As investigations later revealed): He dozed off on the steering wheel obviously due to fatigue!
Many situations like this abound, especially in Nigeria where there is no explicit regulation regarding hours of work for truck drivers and where structural deficiencies tend to make trip last longer than necessary. It is therefore not unusual to see drivers being pushed to the limits. A direct effect of this ‘push’ is that more and more drivers now suffer from what in medical parlance is referred to as Fatigue!
What is Fatigue?
- The hidden killer
- A state of tiredness
- A state of general body weakness
- Loss of absolute control over body reflexes and movement
- A state where the otherwise invisible gap between sight and action becomes wide and very visible
- A state where the eyes is seeing faster than the mind or where the eyes is seeing what the mind cannot understand or comprehend
- Driving fatigued is as bad as driving under the influence
- About 12% of all crashes are traceable to Fatigue!
Indicators of fatigue include:
Here’s how you know you are suffering from fatigue
- A drowsy relaxed feeling
- A blurred vision
- Difficulty keeping your eyes open
- Head nodding involuntarily and repeatedly
- Excessive yawning
- Repeatedly drifting out of lane
What causes fatigue?
Any of the below stated four main factors can influence the onset of fatigue:
Body clock factors:
- Working when you would normally be asleep
- Sleeping when you would normally be awake
Sleep factors:
- Getting less than the normal amount of sleep
- Getting poor sleep
Work factors:
- Working very long or extended hours
- No time to recover from work.
- Working irregular hours
Health factors:
- Medical sleep problems
- General health and lifestyle issues
Effects of fatigue
The scenario described above is a classic example of the effect of fatigue. But generally speaking, fatigue leads to the below stated conditions and possibly more:
Loss of alertness:
This means that you cannot respond quickly and safely to an emergency and may miss spotting dangers. May be less efficient at controlling your vehicle, for example changing gears, staying in your lane and maintaining steady speed.
Drowsy driving
Drowsiness means feeling sleepy, but not actually being asleep. If you feel drowsy you may actually drift in and out of sleep without knowing it. This accounts for some quite common ‘off-the-road-into-the-ditch’ crashes.
Poor memory
Being fatigued will affect your short-term memory. For example, you may suddenly become aware you have travelled 200 km without knowing it.
Bad moods
Being very fatigued can make you irritable and not very good company at work or at home. You are likely to overreact to things going on around you.
Crashes after falling asleep at the wheel
These are typically very severe single-vehicle crashes where there has been no attempt by the driver to control the vehicle and where the driver was clearly completely unaware of events before the crash
Dealing with Fatigue
Approach every trip with a PLAN! A trip plan will cover when to move (fitness), how to move (routing), where to stop to observe some rest or eat and several other trip related activities.
Conserve your energy. Do not unnecessarily burn your energy or strain your muscles. Drive smoothly, avoid over-speeding, harsh braking and excessive lane changes. All these help you to better manage number of stops required per trip and hours spent for a quick recovery of lost energy.
Seek medical help. In some instances where fatigue has a medical root cause, a visit to qualified medical personnel may not be out of place. It could prove to be that stitch that saves nine.
Sleep it away! However, in most cases of fatigue, there is only ONE tested and proven solution: Get off the road, park your truck safely and take a nap or simply put- SLEEP.
**Always remember that: It is too late to manage fatigue after you have fallen asleep at the wheel!
