MAIN FEATURE
Research has shown that tiredness often hits in the early afternoon after lunch or during the early morning hours
course, as discussed above, are a requirement of Tachograpgh regulations, but it should be made clear that these are minimum breaks and others can be taken as and when required and should not be held against the driver by their company.
Taking fresh air with a walk about will not only give the driver a rest mentally and physically but will also alleviate body stiffness which also adds to fatigue.
Staying calm is also essential. In modern- day traffic it is all too easy to become enraged with others bad driving. Not only would this affect individual driver attention but also add to the fatigue problem as stress kicks in. Staying calm also helps the concentration whilst on the road.
Planning full rest schedules into a long journey will also help. Research has shown that tiredness often hits in the early afternoon after lunch (2 pm to 4 pm) or during the early morning hours (2 am to 4 am), so particularly for those drivers not used to night driving full rest periods are essential for safe driving. This may apply in relation to the industry we are referencing here for transport vehicles but may vary considerably for plant operations depending on the workload at site.
Being relaxed whilst driving also helps limit fatigue. However, modern labour- saving systems such as cruise control and
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lane-assist can induce too much relaxation and potential tiredness over long periods on the road. The development of on-board attention alert systems mean that drivers can be warned if it thinks they are not attending sufficiently.
There are of course very easily recognised signs of fatigue including amongst others:
■ Heavy eyelids ■ Yawning
■ Drooping head (as a result of neck muscles gradually relaxing)
■ Loss of concentration
■ Microsleep which occurs when a driver dozes off for 30 seconds with no recollection of it happening, and 30 seconds is a long time to be off attention when driving.
So, any driver experiencing such symptoms should stop and take a break as soon as they start experiencing these them.
OTHER SAFETY SYSTEMS
As well as the driver alert and lane monitoring systems that are common amongst most modern vehicles there are of course other safety systems that are coming to the fore.
The use of camera systems with images displayed on screens inside the driver’s cab are increasingly being used. Not only
| February 2022 |
www.draintraderltd.com
do they provide the more traditional images of rear view that drivers require but they are also becoming an increasingly useful tool against blind side passing by the like of cyclists and motorbike riders.
Further to this some vehicles also come fitted with proximity devices that warn drivers about nearby vehicles on all side as well as emergency braking systems that utilise proximity sensors to measure distance to vehicles in front and apply breaking if the closing speed is too great.
VEHICLE PROVIDERS
There is of course a plethora of vehicle providers many of which were approached for input into this article to highlight the latest vehicle availability. The responses of those that replied follow.
HOPDEALS – Hopdeals vehicles are very much built with the customer requirements in mind. As standard the company fits the usual safety beacons, reflective tape and work lights but the customer can dictate what level of safety equipment they would like beyond that, some of the company’s used chassis come with 360° camera systems pre- installed and near-side proximity sensors to detect pedestrians and cyclists however we can fit these to all vehicles based on the customer’s requirements.
Obviously, the chassis all come with lane
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