Around one-third of truck drivers suffer from mild to severe sleep apnea according to a study from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The condition can severely affect their ability to drive safely.
Sleep apnea is when a person’s airway is constricted during sleep. This leads to a restful night and disrupted sleep that can cause drowsiness or impairment while driving. Many cases of sleep apnea go undiagnosed and cause persistent problems for truck drivers.
There are currently no federal regulations for actively identifying and testing drivers who are at a higher risk than others for sleep apnea. Furthermore, if a driver is, in fact, shown to have moderate to severe sleep apnea, he or she may be deemed “medically unfit” to operate a truck. This keeps many truck drivers from disclosing their sleep apnea symptoms in fear of losing their jobs.
In recent years, there has been a call to establish a system for testing drivers for sleep apnea due to the high rate of deadly truck accidents. However as of yet, nothing has come to pass.