ANALYSIS
Driver Fatigue: Not as Simple as Getting Enough Sleep
WRITTEN BY KATHLEEN FURNEAUX
realistically from a transportation professional’s view, there is much more to consider. Several factors can contribute to this problem, including today’s lifestyle, the economy, medication side effects — and even the transportation director.
T
LIFESTYLE Like many people in today’s society, school bus drivers face
multiple obligations to their families, aging parents, children, grandchildren, jobs and communities. When we look back just 10 years, we see a slower pace, fewer demands and maybe even less stress in our lives. Today, the average parent spends 15 hours a day preparing
meals, meeting the many and varied needs of their family, working and traveling between all those obligations. When we subtract eight hours for adequate sleep, one hour remains for relaxation, stress relief and entertainment — a short, 60 minutes to put our world in perspective. For some, the guilt we experience when we feel our family somehow does not measure up to “the Joneses” means we are reluctant to reduce the 15 hours needed to meet family needs. Tis is good old-fashioned peer pressure in some cases. As a result, “adequate rest” becomes the victim. According to a
2011 National Sleep Foundation poll, 63 percent of Americans say they do not meet their sleep needs during the week. Tat means more than one out of two people are performing their jobs without enough sleep. Not too alarming when you think about the receptionist at the office, but potentially tragic for a driver behind the wheel of a school bus.
ECONOMICS Te downturned economy is recovering slowly; however,
the transportation industry’s recovery has been even slower. To survive the past few years, most operations have not yet restored concessions such as reduced or lost benefits or staff hours. In some cases, spouses and adult children have lost jobs, which puts additional financial stress on the bus driver’s family unit.
Te most significant economic contribution to issues sur-
rounding fatigue has been depression experienced by school bus drivers. A study published in a recent issue of Psychoso- matic Medicine found that people who experience depression are more than four times as likely to develop unexplained fatigue, and those who suffer from fatigue are nearly three times as likely to become depressed. Exacerbating this issue is the ever-increasing cost of health
38 School Transportation News February 2014
care. Seeking medical advice or services may be prohibitive to a driver experiencing financial challenges, which, in turn, compromises their health and wellness. Tis continuous cycle could have a dramatic impact on the safety performance of school bus drivers.
MEDICATION SIDE EFFECTS Taking prescription or over-the-counter medications to al-
leviate the negative effects of a medical illness or condition is a way of life for many of us. However, the side effects of drugs that lessen these challenges, especially the common side effect of drowsiness, can create a safety issue for the professional school bus driver. Urge your drivers to become dedicated label readers and to make educated decisions about getting behind the wheel of the school bus.
he issues swirling in recent news headlines about the tragic results of fatigued or drowsy driving would seem to have a simple fix — get enough rest! However, when we look at these issues
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