The sleep of long-haul truck drivers.
BACKGROUND
Fatigue and sleep deprivation are important safety issues for long-haul truck drivers.


METHODS
We conducted round-the-clock electrophysiologic and performance monitoring of four groups of 20 male truck drivers who were carrying revenue-producing loads. We compared four driving schedules, two in the United States (five 10-hour trips of day driving beginning about the same time each day or of night driving beginning about 2 hours earlier each day) and two in Canada (four 13-hour trips of late-night-to-morning driving beginning at about the same time each evening or of afternoon-to-night driving beginning 1 hour later each day).


RESULTS
Drivers averaged 5.18 hours in bed per. day and 4.78 hours of electrophysiologically verified sleep per day over the five-day study (range, 3.83 hours of sleep for those on the steady 13-hour night schedule to 5.38 hours of sleep for those on the steady 10-hour day schedule). These values compared with a mean (+/-SD) self-reported ideal amount of sleep of 7.1+/-1 hours a day. For 35 drivers (44 percent), naps augmented the sleep obtained by an average of 0.45+/-0.31 hour. No crashes or other vehicle mishaps occurred. Two drivers had undiagnosed sleep apnea, as detected by polysomnography. Two other drivers had one episode each of stage 1 sleep while driving, as detected by electroencephalography. Forty-five drivers (56 percent) had at least 1 six-minute interval of drowsiness while driving, as judged by analysis of video recordings of their faces; 1067 of the 1989 six-minute segments (54 percent) showing drowsy drivers involved just eight drivers.


CONCLUSIONS
Long-haul truck drivers in this study obtained less sleep than is required for alertness on the job. The greatest vulnerability to sleep or sleep-like states is in the late night and early morning.
Mitler
M M
MM
Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, La Jolla, Calif. 92037-1205, USA.
Miller
J C
JC
Lipsitz
J J
JJ
Walsh
J K
JK
Wylie
C D
CD
D000328:Adult; D002170:Canada; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005221:Fatigue / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018986:Motor Vehicles; D017286:Polysomnography; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology; D012892:Sleep Deprivation; D014186:Transportation; D014481:United States; D016526:Workload