Opinion: The Fatigue Checklist — Scant Science

By John Hausladen

President

Minnesota Trucking Association

This Opinion piece appears in the July 13 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Get a group of truckers together anywhere in this country, and Minnesota’s “Fatigued Driving Evaluation Checklist” is bound to come up. The 75-item list gained national prominence when the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association sued the Minnesota State Patrol in federal court in an attempt to stop its use.

OOIDA alleges the checklist violates basic civil rights, is open to broad interpretation and has no basis in science.

Truck drivers from across the country strongly agree, if my voice mail is any indication. They are calling our office and flooding the airwaves and Internet with emotion-filled comments opposing the checklist, which to them feels like just one more insult and invasion of privacy. Life on the road is tough enough without troopers asking if you read or watch TV during the 10 hours the government forces you to stay in your sleeper berth.

In these tough times, the checklist is just one more barrier to survival: A driver deemed “fatigued” is put out of service for 10 hours, a severe penalty that wreaks havoc with productivity, customer service and take-home pay. Carriers, meanwhile, must support their drivers and support fatigue prevention, while somehow staying in business.

Fatigue management is a longtime staple of carrier safety programs. Working with customers to change shipping patterns and implementing dispatch “do not call” protocols when drivers are sleeping are just two of the many ways carriers keep drivers fresh and alert — practices that contribute to the lowest fatal truck-crash rates on record.

Carriers want to run safe operations and understand that regulatory compliance is part of the process. But confidence, clarity and consistency are all lacking with regard to regulating fatigue, including this checklist.

First, the trucking industry has no proof there is actual science behind the checklist. We recognize that the state patrol believes a sound basis exists for the checklist, but it hasn’t shared it with trucking. We need to see the underlying research to determine for ourselves if it is valid.

Second, any new rules regarding fatigue must be written down in clear, understandable terms, made publicly available and supported with detailed regulatory guidance.

None of that exists today for the Minnesota fatigue program except the checklist itself. In fairness, we understand the checklist is meant to be just one of many fatigue-management strategies, but to truck drivers, the checklist appears to be all there is to it.

This checklist is a strange, new animal, unlike any fatigue-enforcement program we have ever seen. Better articulation of the broader protocol supporting it is needed, including how law officers are trained to use it.

Third, the checklist must be applied in a consistent manner. It appears to give roadside law officers unusually wide discretion, and truckers fear that flexibility will lead to inconsistency, making it impossible to know exactly what the standard is — like an umpire changing the strike zone on every pitch.

The checklist litigation may be the headline story this week, but it isn’t the primary fatigue-related issue facing the trucking industry. The real story is that the federal government has undergone a major philosophical shift regarding how it views fatigue and enforcement. Until recently, if a driver had a current log and plenty of available hours, the trooper would smile and send you on your way.

That was the default standard of enforcement.

But when a charter bus and truck collided in Wisconsin in 2005, killing five people, fatigue took on a whole new level of importance for the federal government, which demanded carriers find more effective ways to keep ill or fatigued drivers off the road.

It is a chilling exclamation point on the whole situation that the truck driver involved in the Wisconsin crash was convicted of falsifying his logs and faces prison time.

Certainly, the National Transportation Safety Board is serious about fatigue. Its acting chairman, Mark Rosenker, said that “. . . operator fatigue is one of the most widespread safety issues in the transportation industry” and “requires a fundamental change in habits and culture.”

A legal, up-to-date log will not prevent you from being put out of service if you are fatigued — period. That’s the change everyone should be paying attention to.

Whether you agree with the checklist or how it was put together, it certainly has elevated the debate about fatigue, and OOIDA’s lawsuit moves that debate closer to a conclusion.

But however the court rules on the Minnesota checklist, its decision will be only a starting point for the larger issue.

Unlike previous legal challenges regarding untested technology such as Breathalyzers or radar guns, this is largely about human interpretation. The court cannot create the aforementioned confidence, clarity and consistency we will need to address the federal fatigue mandate. That will be left to regulators, law enforcement and the trucking industry working together to develop a verifiable, science-based standard for assessing fatigue that not only will work on the roadside but also will be an invaluable training tool for carriers and drivers.

The 700-member Minnesota Trucking Association is based in Roseville, Minn. The author has been its president and chief executive officer for 13 years.