Federal regulators have announced designs to step up scrutiny of sleep apnea & other health issues affecting truckers, a move that has put them on notice to get healthy.
Truckers are more likely than average Americans to be overweight, which can lead to health issues including sleep apnea, which disrupts sleep & causes fatigue — contributing to thousands of crashes a year. No one knows for positive because the government has never necessary that drivers be tested.
'I've Gained 100 Pounds'
Outside the Iron Skillet restaurant on I-70 east of Kansas City — where you can receive a salad, but the chicken-fried steak & eggs with gravy positive look more appealing — it appears few truckers are going hungry.
"I'm not bad. I am 6-foot-4, but I weigh 406 pounds," says driver Jerry Mumma. "Do I need to lose weight? Oh yeah, I need to lose weight. I need to get down to about 260, 280 pounds."
Mumma's got company. Doctors writing federal transportation owner think that up to 40 percent of professional drivers are significantly overweight.
Sitting in his truck, Marty Ellis blames the job. "Since I went to work here, I have gained 100 pounds — because you are sedentary," Ellis says. "This is your job — to sit behind this wheel."
& they sit for 10 or 11 hours a day, weeks at a time, lots of of them, following the work. Ellis says it is hard to arrange a checkup, harder still to park a 70-foot-long truck & trailer at the doctor's office.
"Most of us don't go to the doctor. They , stay clear of 'em, & they keep going," Ellis says. "A lot of owner operators out here don't have insurance."
Truckers do must receive a medical examination at least every three years to qualify for their commercial driver's license. But lots of have been free to pick doctors who might overlook red flags, like obesity, which can trigger sleep apnea. & that can lead to fatigue, which a federal study shows to be a factor in 13 percent of truck crashes. The American Trucking Associations says a third of drivers are likely suffer from sleep apnea, but the government has never necessary truckers to be tested for it. Ellis says they have always handled it on their own.
"I mean, before it didn't matter. As long as you could drive down the road it didn't matter. & now the regulations are beginning to say, in case you don't do this or you don't do that you may not drive anymore — it is something you , must think about," Ellis says.
Trucker Trainers
Dr. Maggie Gunnels, who serves on a panel that is rewriting health regulations for truckers, says the panel's job is to remove high-risk operators from the road. "It's safer for them, & it is safer for the American public who travel," Gunnels says.
The panel published proposed rule changes months ago. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will start to formalize them soon, beginning by establishing a registered pool of approved health screeners. Soon to follow: systematic screening for sleep apnea.
"So, I would say it is time to invest in your health. Hopefully lots of of them have started, & there is some great programs out there already for truckers," Gunnels says.
Greg McDermand, who works for a company that sells mobile sleep apnea treatment machines to truckers, encourages them to receive a small little small bit of exercise. "We actually encourage the fellows to walk around your truck three times every day. get out & get some kind of exercise," McDermand says.
& the fitness industry's is getting in on it, . In an exercise video, Bob Perry works out with heavy chains as well as a giant tire, stuff truckers may have on hand.
"It's now reached the tipping point. Every day they are seeing an increase of drivers who say, 'I need to lose weight,' " Perry says.
Perry is the president of Roadside Medical Clinics, a company opening clinics at truck stops.
& an organization called the St. Christopher Fund is taking health screening on the road.
Jon Osborn roams the country in campers called Medical Resource Vehicles loaded with medical diagnostic equipment. A former trucker, Osborn has lost 100 pounds historicallyin the past few years.
Osborn suggests that because truck drivers have limited room in their trucks, they keep an alloy folding bicycle in their cabs — the kind you might expect to see an elderly person riding — so they can get some exercise. It may be kind of a stretch to imagine that happening in the macho cap-and-cowboy-boot culture of trucking. But it is a step in the direction that increasingly truckers will be taking, as they try to improve their health, before the government steps in
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