Your daily commute just became more dangerous, thanks to
President Trump.
In his zeal to
kill off unnecessary Federal regulations, he has ordered cancelation of a plan
to require mandatory sleep apnea
testing for truck drivers and railroad engineers.
The Federal Railroad Administration, and its sister agency
covering truckers, both said they still recommended such testing but would not
require it. Why? Perhaps it is the Trump
administration’s campaign promise to cut two regulations for each new one
imposed.
I’m all for “draining the swamp”, but this exercise in
cutting red tape is likely to cause deaths.
It wasn’t until December of 2013 that anyone in
railroading had given serious thought to sleep apnea. Because that’s when Metro-North engineer
William Rockefeller ran his train into a 30 mph curve at 82 mph at Spuyten
Duyvil, sending the cars off the tracks and leaving four passengers dead.
Initially Rockefeller said his brakes had failed. Then he said he’d been “sort of dazed,
mesmerized”, comparing it to highway hypnosis. When he realized what was happening it was
too late. His emergency brake
application, coupled with the momentum of the huge locomotive pushing, not
pulling, the train, made derailment inevitable.
Rockefeller was a 15-year veteran of Metro-North, ten
years as an engineer. But he’d also been
changing his work shift. On the morning of the accident Rockefeller had left
his home at 3:30 am to get to work, having gone to bed at 8:30 pm the night
before, after a nine hour work shift.
But not only was he tired, he was also overweight and, as
subsequent testing showed, suffered from undiagnosed sleep apnea. Federal investigators said his medical
condition meant he was an accident waiting to happen, and criticized
Metro-North for not testing its employees.
Shortly after, the FRA proposed mandatory testing and Metro-North
complied.
By the way… Rockefeller is now on a $3200 a month
lifetime disability pension because of his sleep apnea but is suing Metro-North for
$10 million claiming it was responsible for allowing him to speed.
In 2016 there was another railroad crash, this time in
Hoboken NJ, when an engineer “spaced out” coming into the station causing a
collision that took one life and left 14 injured. Investigators think the engineer may also
have had sleep apnea.
By the way… neither train had Positive Train Control
which might have prevented speeding that caused the accident. That technology is still many months away
thanks to foot dragging by the railroads.
Sleep apnea may affect 5-20% of the population, with
obesity being a contributing factor. And
in sedentary jobs like
truck driving and railroad engineering, obesity is a big problem.
So why not test for it?
We test airline pilots’ vision and health, including potential sleep
apnea. So should we also
test railroad engineers and truck drivers.
Our lives are in their hands and we have a right to know they’re not
drunk, blind or falling asleep at the wheel.
An average Metro-North train at rush hour can carry 1000
passengers, the equivalent of two fully-loaded 747’s. Don’t we have a right to know that the
engineer is in good health? Not according
to the Trump administration, which sees such mandatory medical testing an
unnecessary burden on business.
Metro-North says its testing has found that 18% of its 320
engineers they tested suffer from sleep apnea. And, to its credit, the railroad says it will
continue testing all crew members, even without the FRA requiring it.
Posted with permission of Hearst CT Media
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