Driving when tired

[Jon P. Inghram]

Sometimes, sometimes not. The worst part about commerical driving is the DoT doesn't care how much or how little sleep you get. It's all about how much time you log as off-duty or in the sleeper. You could be out playing pool and then come back to your truck and play games on your Playstation 2 for hours and log it the same as if you were sleeping and they wouldn't give a damn. And too many states make it as hard as possible for drivers to find places to sleep when they need it the most. When you get out in the east and west coasts many truck stops charge to park, and even then you're lucky to find a spot to park. Honestly it's amazing anything gets to where it's going... and don't forget the driver turnover rate in the trucking industry is well over 500% for the most part.

[DentyCracker]

If you're tired, for God's sake pull over far off the road. My cousin was recently killed by a sleeping driver while he was on the soft shoulder fixing a flat. Poor sod was only 25 too

[The PIT]

Sorry to hear about that Dentycracker.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Well, that's one important reason why I used to drive a truck. Other important issues were that dispatchers didn't know what they were doing, to the point of requiring the truck driver to explain to them that you can only work so many hours a week and other basic things like that... it was pitiful. And statisticaly speaking you're nearly 100% assured to be in an accident every year. Most fatal or serious truck related accidents are caused by drivers falling asleep behind the wheel, or making serious errors in judgment due to lack of sleep. I'll never go back to driving a truck again, it's perhaps one of the worst jobs you can have as far as being detrimental on your personal health, mentaly and physicaly.

[KvHagedorn]

Long hauls should ALL be made by train. I live right next to Interstate 35 here in Texas and it is way beyond capacity now that NAFTA has been passed. Basically, every form of transportation OTHER than the railroads is Federally subsidized, meaning WE pay for the roads that now must be widened for this huge increase in truck traffic. WE also pay for airports and air traffic control with tax dollars. If the government would provide some incentive for at least this long distance freight traffic to move by rail, we wouldn't have so many accidents, wouldn't have to widen the highway, wouldn't have to repair it twice as often because of truck traffic etc. Why aren't we doing this? Probably because that would be the SMART thing to do.