There is a new system that the Washington State Patrol (WSP) is starting to use to try to figure out the ever growing problem that contributors to semi-truck crashes on our Interstate Highways. The issue and potentially deadly syndrome of driver fatigue is becoming more and more common as our trucking companies are asking our truck drivers to drive more and more.
The WSP has found a way to test for the once untreatable syndrome of driver fatigue. You cannot accurately test a truck driver for fatigue, but you can test the trucks to get a good indication of how long that truck has been on the road. Monitoring how long the truck has been driving can indicate that the driver is probably not fit to continue to drive.
“Commercial vehicles passing WSP’s weight-stations will be electronically screened for their weight, size, registration and safety record, the system allows officers to check to see how long the trucks have been on the road that day,” WSP spokesperson Andy Stoeckle said.
The number of fatigue related crashes are on the raise as we ask our best drivers to driver more. Due to the driver shortage this trend looks to continue. Troopers that are making the reports of what happened at the crash site are reporting that drivers are falsifying their logbooks so they can keep driving. The driver can lie in their logs but when the truck passed new scanners on the Washington Highways there is no way for them to change the fact that WSP now knows where that truck has been and how long they have been driving.
“The vast majority of the truck drivers on our roads are safe drivers and follow the rules,” WSP Captain Darren Grondel said “But there are a few drivers out there who are irresponsible and this new computer program will help us get these drivers off the road by verifying logbook entries.”
With new license plate readers positioned at 12 Washington weight-stations, troopers can now determine the amount of time a truck has been on the road by knowing the location and times that the truck pasted through the stations. Truck drivers that are found to be on the road too long are placed out of service for 10 hours and could be cited.
Scanning licenses plates maybe a good start for WSP, but there are other technologies out there that can be more affective and go one step further to reduce the amount of truck drivers that are drowsy on the roads.
In 2008 Lexus introduced its own drowsy alert system. It was in its 2008 LS 600h. The system uses a camera to monitor the driver’s face. The system is called “The Driver Monitor System” and is a part of the Lexus Pre-Collision System that costs close too $7,000. The system uses a camera that is geared with infrared technology, mounted on the steering column. This camera is able to monitor the exact position and angle of the driver’s head while the car is in motion. In conjunction with the Advanced Pre-Crash Safety detecting an obstacle ahead and the Driver Monitoring System determining the Driver’s head has been turned away from the road for too long, the devices communicate too each other that something is not right and activates pre-crash warnings automatically. The system will try a warning usually a beeping sound and if the situation persists the system can go as far as automatically applying the brakes briefly to get the drivers attention.
Granted this is a world’s first created by Lexus, but this is a much more advance and proactive way to prevent driver fatigue. Semi-Trucks are full of thousands of dollars of freight, costs thousands of dollars themselves, and lets not forget is carring the priceless life of our truck driver. $7,000 seems like a very important investment to make life over the road a little bit safer.
More recently Mercedes-Benz just became the winners of the 2010 best safety innovation for their new system called “Attention Assist.” Mercedes new system observes a driver’s driving behavior at the start of every trip. It puts together a profile of how the driver drives and continues to monitor it for any changes that may occur over the long haul of a trip. By monitoring the steering behavior for steering errors and quick or abrupt corrections the can determine if the driver is dozing off which tells the system to warn the driver to potential take a break.
With systems like these in place companies can be alerted of a potentially fatal situation before it happens. Dispatchers and get in touch with drivers and tell them to pull over for the night. They can probably go as far as activating a system that can shut off the truck in 15 minutes or immediately if the situation gets out of control. All in all, as new technologies are adopted by the trucking industry, the days of fatal crashes do to drowsiness at the wheel should start to become a thing of the pass.
Here are our sources:
http://www.truckline.com/Pages/Home.aspx
http://www.lexus.eu/range/ls/key-features/safety/safety-driver-monitoring-system.aspx
http://www.emercedesbenz.com/Nov08/12_001506_Mercedes_Benz_TecDay_Special_Feature_Attention_Assist_Blind
Tags: Truck Drivers
