NTSB Still Focused on Fatigue as Accident Factor

Federal regulators of transportation still need to push for systems aimed at reducing driver fatigue as a factor in large truck accidents that cause death and injury, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said recently.

The safety board offered the reminder in a press release during National Sleep Awareness Week. It’s a stance supported by the truck accident lawyers at PritzkerOlsen Attorneys, a premier personal injury law firm that has years of experience representing people seriously injured or killed in accidents with semi-trailers.

The most recent NTSB example of injuries and death that can result from a sleep-deprived truck driver is the October 16, 2005, freeway crash near Osseo, Wisconsin, of a Whole Foods truck-tractor semitrailer and a motor coach carrying a high school marching band home to Chippewa Falls High School.

Five people in the motorcoach died, including the driver, and 35 others were injured, many seriously.

According to the NTSB’s final report, issued just last year, the 22-year-old driver of the tractor-trailer was asleep at the time of the accident because of reduced quality of sleep the night before. The NTSB said his employer gave him adequate off-duty time to sleep, but he stayed out drinking with friends and didn’t get to bed until 6 a.m.

The report said alcohol consumption deprives people of quality sleep. A key conclusion of the accident investigation was that the truck driver reduced the quality of his sleep by drinking “and the circadian desynchronization he experienced due to his operating the truck in the early morning hours, when the body is predisposed to sleep.”

The driver was westbound on Interstate 94, carrying groceries from Indiana to the Twin Cities. When his truck veered sharply off the road, the rumble strips on the shoulder woke him up and he jerked the steering wheel to the left, causing the cab and trailer to fall on its side and block both westbound lanes.

In the darkness, the motorcoach driver didn’t see the truck laying across the lanes until it was too late. Better brakes on the motorcoach would have reduced the force of the impact, but not prevented the crash, the NTSB ruled.

This week, NTSB Board member Deborah Hersman said, “Fatigue can impair a person behind the wheel or at the helm much like alcohol or other drugs. We must ensure that as much as possible is being done to protect our transportation system from the insidious effect of human fatigue.”

Minnesota auto accident cases often involve driver negligence, including fatigue, which is more involved than one might think. Contact a Minnesota car accident attorney at PritzkerOlsen by calling 1-888-377-8900 (toll free) or fill out a free case consultation form. 

Our attorneys are nationally recognized and have been quoted in news sources including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press and CNN, as well as many local network television affiliates.