Sleepiness at work among commercial truck drivers

Two separate groups consisting of both long-haul (N=184) and short-haul (N= 133) truck drivers were surveyed to examine the frequency of driver sleepin ess-related problems at work during the previous three months and to assess the incidence of sleep apnea syndrome symptoms. We also aimed to identify factors likely to predict self-reported difficulties in staying alert in wo rk driving, dozing off (sometimes referred to as microsleeps) at the wheel and near misses. The responses suggest that for approximately 13% of the long-haul drivers t he mean driving time per shift exceeded the EEC regulation. About 40% of th e long-haul drivers and 21% of the short-haul drivers reported having probl ems in staying alert on at least 20% of their drives. Over 20% of the long- haul drivers also reported having dozed off at least twice while driving. N ear misses due to dozing off had occurred in 17% of these drivers. Factors indicating sleep apnea syndrome occurred in only about 4% of the long-haul drivers and in only two short-haul drivers. Work and individual related fac tors as well as factors indicating sleep apnea syndrome contributed only sl ightly to predicting driver sleepiness-related problems. This suggests that driver sleepiness-related problems tend to be shared by many of the professional drivers, rather than being a "specific" and perman ent problem for a smaller portion of drivers. However, difficulties in slee p patterns, such as having difficulty falling asleep, were infrequent.