Dr. Alan Lankford of SleepSafe Drivers capped off the morning portion of testimony in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety and Federal Railroad administrations’ “fact-finding” listening session on sleep apnea/operator safety with a clear message for regulators as they pursue a potential rulemaking. “Risk factors” for apnea, Lankford said — things like a large neck size, a body mass index of “30, 35 or whatever” — can not be considered a catch-all substitute for careful evaluation of a medical condition.
Echoing the title of Overdrive‘s 2014 report on the then-growing willingness of certified medical examiners during DOT physicals to issue short-term conditional (if any) certifications pending expensive sleep studies for apnea, Lankford said any regulation should “take the approach that [risk factors don’t] mean you have sleep apnea. We need to make sure that the people behind the wheel understand they are not guilty until proven innocent.”
The FMCSA and FRA convened this first of three listening sessions in Washington, D.C., May 12, the next sessions to follow May 17 and 25 in Chicago and Los Angeles, respectively. (For information on participation in person and via webcast, follow this link.) Commenters in large part reflected the range of views on apnea, from skepticism about whether a regulation of the condition was even justified to a call for due consideration of the livelihoods of affected drivers throughout the supply chain.
Owner-operator Richard Pingel, speaking as a board member of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, echoed Lankford’s assessment of hard-fast screening protocols, noting that far too many certified medical examiners (CMEs) today seemed to be ordering “sleep apnea testing for some arbitrary reason, such as neck size. … I’ve spoken to drivers who’ve spent thousands of dollars for testing and equipment” for treatment as a result.
The burden can be significant, and isn’t just limited to hard costs, either, Pingel added. Apnea testing in a sleep lab “can be extremely difficult to coordinate” given the often unpredictable schedule of many drivers, requiring more downtime than is often appreciated by those not in the business of trucking.
Alternatives to overnight, in-lab testing, Pingel suggested, should be considered if regulation is ultimately where the agency goes.
