Citation

Law B, Jones S. J. Australas. Coll. Road Saf. 2016; 27(1): 52-57.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Australasian College of Road Safety)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

The risk posed by fatigued drivers is well understood in the road safety literature and is reflected in laws applying to heavy vehicles. Fatigue is estimated to be the predominant cause of 12% of serious injury crashes involving heavy vehicles (NTI, 2013). Not sleeping for more than seventeen hours can have effects on the human body similar to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05. Not sleeping for more than twenty four hours can have effects on the human body similar to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10. The literature suggests that commercial vehicle drivers sleep, on average five to 6.5 hours per night – well below the recommended eight hours. In July 2011 TRGL began a trial of ‘driver state sensing’ (DSS) machines designed by the company Seeing Machines at its German Creek operation in Queensland. At the time Toll utilised twenty heavy vehicles to haul coal from production sites to the wash plant. The vehicles worked in twelve hour shifts, one shift being from 6am to 6pm and the other from 6pm to 6am. DSS machines are in-vehicle systems that capture eye-lid and head motion through sensitive cameras mounted at eye-level in the vehicle.

Language: en