Federal Agency Looks at Safety Issues
A panel of experts recently urged the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration – the agency charged with large truck and bus highway safety – to require that obese commercial drivers with body mass indices of 35 or more be tested for sleep apnea, a problem for millions of Americans.
The recommendations also include potential disqualification of commercial drivers who fall asleep at the wheel or are involved in fatigue-related truck accidents.
More common in men, obstructive sleep apnea is a common disorder that causes a person’s breathing during sleep to be shallow and interrupted because the airway is blocked in the throat area, often because of obesity. During interrupted breathing, the sleeper actually stops breathing for anywhere from a couple of seconds up to several minutes. Snoring is often a symptom. [Read more…]