Transportation - Monday, October 13, 2008 9:16 - 0 Comments

NTSB reacts to sleep-related crash information

The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that trucking companies should work harder to ensure that their drivers get rest. The Board also says the government should move toward mandating the use of alarm systems to alert exhausted truckers. While drivers are ultimately responsible for getting enough rest, the Board believes trucking companies and the government should also make the nation’s roads safer by studying fledgling technology that would keep drivers alert. A Board hearing, held in Washington, D.C., and streamed live on the Internet, was held in response to an early-morning crash in western Wisconsin three years ago in which a bus carrying a high school band slammed into an overturned semitrailer, killing five people. NTSB investigators concluded that the truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and began to drift off the interstate’s shoulder. When he swerved back onto the road, the rig overturned. The bus then plowed into the truck.

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