The Driver Who Has Not Slept
You are a transport supervisor. A driver arrives at 05:40 for a 06:00 departure on a 7-hour run. He tells you he slept badly - about three hours - because of a family problem, and he has been awake since 02:30. He is 52, takes prescribed medication for high blood pressure, and says he feels 'fine, just tired'. He has a clean record and has never refused a run. His tachograph shows 41 hours of driving in the last 7 days, and he has had his full weekly rest. The load is a 24,000 kg delivery of steel coils with a fixed unloading slot at 14:00 that the customer will charge for if missed. There is no relief driver available until 10:00, and the customer has said they will not reschedule. The route is 420 km, mostly motorway, and he will be driving into the morning sun for the first two hours.
1. Assess the driver's fitness to drive. Identify the specific risk factors and explain why 'he says he feels fine' is not sufficient evidence.
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Risk factors present:
- Acute sleep restriction: roughly three hours' sleep, awake since 02:30 - so by 06:00 he will have been awake about 3.5 hours, and by the end of a 7-hour run about 10.5 hours, with a large sleep debt behind him.
- Time of day: departure at 06:00 places the drive across the early-morning circadian low, and a long run into late morning, when sleepiness naturally rises again.
- Monotony: 420 km of mostly motorway is the highest-risk driving environment for falling asleep at the wheel.
- Glare: two hours into the low morning sun increases fatigue and reduces hazard perception.
- Health and medication: he is 52 and on blood-pressure medication. Some such medications cause drowsiness; he should be asked specifically about this and, if unclear, referred to his GP or occupational health.
- Pressure: a fixed 14:00 slot with a financial penalty creates exactly the incentive to push on rather than stop.
Why 'I feel fine' is not evidence. Sleepiness is poorly self-assessed. Drivers fall asleep with no warning and no memory of the seconds before - the subjective sense of being alert is not correlated reliably with impairment, and the worse the sleep debt, the worse the self-assessment. He also has a strong reason to say he is fine: he has never refused a run and there is a penalty looming. His statement is a data point, not a fitness assessment.
Conclusion: he is not fit to drive this run as planned. The driving-hours position (41 hours in 7 days, full weekly rest taken) is compliant, but compliance with hours does not equal fitness to drive - the two are separate tests, and he fails the fitness one.
2. Set out the decision and the practical steps you take, including how you handle the customer and what you record.
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Decision: do not let him depart at 06:00 on the full run. Fitness to drive overrides the delivery slot; a fatigue-related crash is not a commercial risk to be traded against a penalty charge.
Practical steps:
- Tell him clearly and without blame that he is not driving in this condition - frame it as a fitness decision, not a disciplinary one, so he reports next time.
- Ask about his medication and whether it causes drowsiness; if there is any doubt, he should not drive until he has checked with his GP or pharmacist.
- Use the 10:00 relief driver for the full run, or let him take a shortened run later in the day after a proper rest - but only after real sleep, not a nap in the yard.
- Contact the customer now, before 06:00, explain that the delivery will be late, and get the revised time agreed in writing. Offer the 10:00 departure and give an honest ETA. It is far cheaper to negotiate a late slot than to explain a crash.
- Record the decision: the conversation, the stated sleep, the medication query, the action taken and the customer contact. This protects both the driver and the operator.
- Follow up - if poor sleep is recurring, refer to occupational health; a one-off family problem is different from an emerging sleep disorder.
What you must not do: send him out with instructions to 'stop for a coffee', or let him start and swap later. Caffeine and willpower do not restore the performance of a sleep-deprived driver, and the highest-risk stretch is the monotonous motorway in the first hours.