MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY AT WORK

Driver Fatigue on the Job

stressed female driver with location pointer - low battery icon

Banner Photo by ©nicoletaionescu/Getty Images

Whatever the source – lack of or poor-quality sleep, long hours of work or driving, shift work, stress, or sleep disorders – fatigue affects your ability to drive safely. Driver fatigue is a major workplace safety risk. The good news: a fatigue risk management system can help employers and workers to reduce the risks of driver fatigue.

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The more hours awake, the more likely you are to be fatigued. Use our animated image to share the message: Prevent fatigued driving.

Infographic and Graphics

How to Choose the Right Fatigue Detection Technology for Your Workplace Infographic

These materials highlight different factors for employers to consider when selecting a fatigue detection technology.

Infographic Graphics

What do we know about driver fatigue?

As many as one in five fatal crashes in the general population involve driver fatigue.¹
Companies use a fatigue risk management system to promote alertness among workers, identify fatigue-prone tasks, and lessen fatigue and its potential consequences.²
After 17 consecutive hours awake, impairment is equivalent to having a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .05. After 24 hours awake, impairment is equivalent to a BAC of .10.³
A survey of the U.S. workforce found that 37% of workers got less than the recommended minimum of 7 hours of sleep.⁴
Most adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep each day.⁵

Being awake for many consecutive hours
Not getting enough sleep over multiple days
Time of day: Your body has a sleep/wake cycle that tells you when to be alert and when it’s time to sleep. The urge to sleep is the most intense in the early morning hours.
Monotonous tasks or long periods of inactivity
Health factors such as sleep disorders or medications that cause drowsiness

Fatigue impairs your ability to safely perform tasks, including driving. When you’re driving, fatigue causes you to:

Nod off
React more slowly to changing road conditions, other drivers, or pedestrians
Make poor decisions
Drift from your lane
Experience “tunnel vision” (when you lose sense of what’s going on in the periphery)
Experience “microsleeps” (brief sleep episodes lasting from a fraction of a second up to 30 seconds)
Forget the last few miles you drove

While regulations set maximum numbers of driving and work hours for jobs such as driving a large truck, this approach doesn’t account for individual differences in sleep needs and health. Workers in most other jobs aren’t covered by regulations intended to reduce driver fatigue.

How can you prevent driver fatigue on the job?

Employers
Workers

Use a fatigue risk management system (FRMS) to promote alertness among workers, identify fatigue-prone tasks, and lessen fatigue and its potential consequences.² Here’s what you need to know before starting an FRMS and how to manage fatigue using the fatigue-risk chain.
Set policies for maximum numbers of overtime hours and consecutive shifts.
Monitor compliance with federal hours-of-service regulations for drivers covered by them.
Ensure sufficient staffing levels across operations, factoring in the inevitable absences that occur due to vacation days, sickness, and turnover.
Implement a workplace sleep disorder screening/management program.
Provide worker training on sleep health and fatigue management.
Allow for rest breaks and napping during extended work shifts.
Give supervisors and workers fatigue-symptom checklists and encourage self-reporting.
Encourage peer monitoring of fatigue symptoms among co-workers.
During incident investigations, collect data on sleep history of workers involved, hours worked leading up to the incident, time of day, and hours of driving.
Review data from in-vehicle monitoring technologies to detect signs of possible fatigue episodes, such as lane departures.
Consider using physiological measurement (e.g., wearables such as instrumented wristbands and sunglasses) to monitor driver fatigue.
Train incident investigators to assess the role of fatigue in incidents and near-miss incidents.
Communicate the following to workers:
- Get enough sleep (7-9 hours each day). If fatigue persists after adequate sleep, get screened for health problems that may be affecting your sleep, such as sleep apnea.
- If you feel fatigued while driving: pull over, drink a cup of coffee, and take a 15-30 minute nap before continuing (research shows it works!).

Plan your off-duty activities to allow enough time for adequate sleep.
Get enough sleep (7-9 hours each day). If fatigue persists after adequate sleep, get screened for health problems that may be affecting your sleep, such as sleep apnea.
Create a sleeping environment that helps you sleep well: a dark, quiet, cool room with no electronics.
If you feel fatigued while driving: pull over, drink a cup of coffee, and take a 15-30 minute nap before continuing. The effects are only temporary – the only “cure” for fatigue is sleep.
Watch yourself and your peers for fatigue-related symptoms.
Report instances of fatigue in yourself and others to your direct supervisor, who can help to determine the safest course of action.
Speak honestly if you are questioned about a fatigue-related incident. Fatigue is a normal biological response – it is not a reflection of how well you do your job.

Resources

NIOSH web page: Work and Fatigue

NIOSH web page: CDC Feature: Driver Fatigue

NIOSH web page: Behind the Wheel at Work: Driver Fatigue

NIOSH web page: Long-Haul Truck Drivers

CDC web page: Drowsy driving

National Safety Council web page: Fatigue – You’re More Than Just Tired

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration web page: Drowsy Driving

North American Fatigue Management Program web page: A Comprehensive Approach for Managing Commercial Driver Fatigue

Journal Articles

US research needs related to fatigue, sleep, and working hours among oil and gas extraction workers
American Journal of Industrial Medicine: 2021 / :1-17

International consensus statements on non-standard working time arrangements and occupational health and safety.
Industrial Health: April 2019 / 57(2):135-138