Trucking industry experts say that new proposals on sleep were determined using faulty research

Many proposals from the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) have caused the American Trucking Associations to question the validity of the studies used to determine a new rule limiting the length of truck drivers' shifts, Bloomberg reports.

The FMCSA recently proposed a regulation that would decrease a driver's daily shift from 11 hours to 10 hours per shift in an effort to promote trucking safety.

However, researchers from the Warwick Medical School, which is located in the United Kingdom, told the news source that the trucking regulators should not suggest that a longer sleeping period will translate into fewer accidents, especially one as slight as the one currently proposed.

“There is no evidence to date to support the view that a few minutes of increased sleep time per day would exert a beneficial effect on mortality risk,” Francesco Cappuccio, sleep researcher from the university, told the news provider.

Many trucking companies say that these new regulations, if passed, would cost the industry more than $2 billion per year.

By Mark Priest

Trucking industry experts say that new proposals on sleep were determined using faulty research

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011