Nearly one in three truck drivers said they had fallen asleep at the wheel in the last year, according to a report revealing that professional driver fatigue is now at “epidemic” levels.
The survey also found that 60% of HGV drivers said they had to drive while fatigued on a regular basis and 52% reported wanting to pull over and take a break, but being unable to.
The European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETWF) report questioned 2,861 truck, bus and coach drivers from 28 European countries, with most responses from HGV drivers coming from the UK, as well as Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Spain.
The ETWF said 772 drivers admitted that they had nearly crashed and caused a major road accident due to driver fatigue.
It said the problem had been created by long hours for low wages, unpredictable working patterns, bad sleep and poor rest facilities.
The ETWF said that while it was well-known that fatigue posed a major risk to road safety, measures taken by employers, as well as policy and legislation, were insufficient.
The Unite union said the study’s results mirrored previous surveys it had conducted and added that its timing was particularly important as due to the current shortage of HGV drivers, food retailers were now lobbying the government to relax driving hours regulations.
Adrian Jones, Unite national officer, described the findings as “stark”.
He said: “Excessive hours is not only making drivers ill but it is also endangering the safety of other road users.
“With growing shortages of drivers, made more severe by a lack of training of new recruits during the pandemic, these problems are only going to get worse.
“Any plan to relax the driving time regulations must be firmly resisted as this will endanger the safety of drivers and other road users.”
Jones added: “Employers need to take a long hard look at themselves, if they want to attract new entrants the industry must become more attractive.
“They must stop flogging drivers to exhaustion and pay decent rates of pay.”
