About basic fatigue management: reducing your fatigue
If you work in the transport industry, you may be required to complete your fatigue management training. You can do this by completing an online fatigue management course.
Basic fatigue management shows you how to prevent fatigue from being a danger to yourself and others. A study of truck drivers showed many were working such long hours they could not get 6, let alone 7 ½ hours of sleep, and do all the other things they had to fit into their scheduled trips or working day. This resulted in sleep deficit for the driver.
Trip schedules should be designed to give drivers the opportunity of at least 7 hours of continuous sleep, preferably at night – with enough time for other essential personal activities such as eating, relaxing and washing.
If this is not happening and you are missing sleep each night you will build up sleep debt. So it is vital that you have adequate days off so that you can pay back your sleep debt.
If you are working long hours and missing sleep you will need two (2) days off a fortnight to recover from the sleep debt to get good long sleeps.
If your trip schedule is too demanding, talk to your Fleet Controller or Manager to change your schedule. Alternatively, raise the matter of you trip schedule at the next safety committee meeting or team meeting. Remember fatigue is covered by OH&S legislation and to be compliant you must complete your fatigue management training.
Do NOT believe that the best measure of your driving performance is making good trip times. That’s important, but it’s more important to arrive alive!
An online fatigue management course will instruct you on ways to reduce fatigue.
No matter whether you have adequate sleep or not, there are high points of alertness and low points when you feel drowsy and want to sleep.
Lack of sleep just makes these drowsiness feelings worse especially between the hours of 1am and 6 am in the morning and 1pm to 4 pm in the afternoon.
If your trip schedule is particularly demanding, or you have fallen behind schedule, you may not be able to get a good night’s sleep and you may feel like a sleep in the afternoon.
If this happens, listen to your body clock and schedule a break for a rest. Call your Manager or Fleet Controller to advise of your revised scheduled and new estimated time of arrival.
It is vital that you get off the road if you feel drowsy during these periods. If you ignore the early signs of drowsiness you may have a micro sleep of 3 to 5 seconds at the wheel.
At 100 km per hour your vehicle will travel approximately 100 metres. This is plenty of time to run off the road or into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
Basic fatigue management is a very valuable tool for avoiding accidents and injury on the roads.
Book this course now!