ATA Praises ATRI over fatigue management programme
The American Trucking Association (ATA) has praised the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) and its government and industry partners for their work in launching the North American Fatigue Management Program (NAFMP), which will provide a comprehensive approach to addressing driver alertness on our US highways.
In launching the NAFMP, ATRI has worked with a number of partners over the past decade including Transport Canada, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and numerous U.S. and Canadian-based trucking fleets.
“This programme is a great example of industry organsations and regulators stepping forward to identify, provide and promote real solutions to improving the safety of our nation’s highways,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “ATA has long believed that looking holistically at alertness and fatigue management, rather than relying on a prescriptive Band-Aid approach provided by the current hours-of-service regulatory system, is the best way to address the complex issues of human alertness and fatigue.
The issue of industry fatigue has been a hot one in the US of late, following similar calls for a change of structure from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regarding hours of service. Graves believes these changes are a well-overdue sign of the time.
“Last week, we saw yet another new set of even more prescriptive hours-of-service rules go into effect,” he said. “Such rules originated in the 1930s and while their basis may represent the best thinking and analysis of that time, in light of the research and work that ATRI and others have done, it is clear that an hours-of-service approach is insufficient relative to the more progressive and comprehensive strategies laid out here to promote driver alertness.”
