Stress -- And Coping With It

Stress and How to Cope With It

Professional drivers deal with stress every day. Traffic, schdules, and enforcement are all stressors. Too much stress can cause high blood pressure, ulcers, heart disease, and other medical conditions not to mention what effects is has on your mental health. Ways to help you deal with stress include but are not limited to:

1)      Take care of yourself – get sufficient rest and eat right every day.

2)      Relieve tension – take a walk or do some other physical activity.

3)      Share information about your stressful situations with others – speak with family members, your supervisor, or a friend.

4)      Deal with what you can change and don’t be stressed by things you have no control over.

5)      Try to stay calm in stressful situations – work on seeing things in a positive, optimistic way before attempting to identify solutions.

6)      Learn how to relax – forget your worries, even for a short period of time. Enjoy life. Take time to do the things you enjoy.

7)      Get professional help if you need it – seek help and learn how to deal with stress.

Sleep Apnea

Sleep Apnea

There have been a lot of changes that have taken effect this year with respect for screening for sleep apnea, and some of you have personally seen it. So I am going to take this opportunity to talk about the changes and the options moving forward.

First, the new requirements for DOT physicals. There are 3 things that are looked at for sleep apnea, blood pressure, neck size, and BMI. Blood pressure is the first and it is the same standard to pass a physical, so no real changes or surprises there. Neck size is new, and for males a neck size of 17 or females size 16 is a trigger. BMI, or body mass index, is a measure of relative weight based on the individual’s mass and height. BMI 35 or greater is also a trigger. If two of the three triggers are above the tolerance, the doctors are only allowed to give you 3 months of medical clearance. I also want you to understand if one doctor does this it is now going into a database and every other doctor will have access to this and won’t pass you without taking the required action. So there is no way to circumvent the system.

The required actions can be to do a sleep study or obtain an AHI score. The AHI score is the first step and could possibly be the only step needed. The score is calculated with a one night sleep study. If that score is within range you can get your year long physical, but if it is not you will then be required to take a full sleep study.

To obtain your one night score, you will have to have your primary care physician refer you to Sleep Med, and the test runs about $300. 90% of insurance coverage covers this test and your out of pocket cost could be almost nothing. If you don’t have a primary care, State Avenue has one that will act as your primary care for an $80 office visit, and then refer you. This one night sleep study will get you results within 48 hours and indicate whether you need a full sleep study or not.

Hours of Service

Hours of Service

I want to review hours of service and the violations that can happen within this category. From this point forward, any hours of service violation will result in a meeting with me to discuss the issue. If there is a pattern, meaning multiple violations for you in the past, we will address all of those and come up with an action plan to avoid any future violations.

14 hour rule – you can only reset your 14 hour rule by taking a 10 hour break.

8 hour max – this is any combination of driving or on duty. You can not work for more than 8 hours straight without getting a 30 minute break in. They are writing people up for this so please be sure you are following the regulation.

11 hour rule – You can not drive for more than 11 hours, and you only can drive again after a 10 hour break.

70 hour rule – please do your recap because this is the only way to track this. Your computer work is always important so planning and dispatch know how many hours you have for a given day or period of time.

Log book not current – keep your log book current, no excuse for this one. Do your logs as you go and you won’t have any problems.

Failing to retain previous 7 days – this should never happen, keep your logs updated every day and sign the log at the end of the day

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