NTSB sleep apnea claims based on assumptions

Earlier this week, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a news release that listed a truck driver’s sleep apnea as one of the probable causes for a 2016 crash near Palm Springs, Calif., that claimed 13 lives.

Of course, it didn’t take long for mainstream media outlets to feed the unfounded theory that an abundance of truck drivers with sleep apnea are wreaking havoc on the highways and causing a large number of fatal crashes.

However, the news release and, consequently, most media outlets left out an extremely important detail.

Although the NTSB determined that the truck driver’s moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea was one of the factors in this deadly crash, the investigators still don’t know for sure if the truck driver suffered from sleep apnea.

Yep. They were merely guessing.

NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss confirmed with Land Line that the truck driver was never tested to see if he, indeed, did suffer from the condition. Instead, the assumption of the trucker’s sleep apnea was based on his obesity and other “risk factors.”

Calling sleep apnea the culprit in a crash when it hasn’t been proven the driver ever had sleep apnea is irresponsible to say the least.

But the irresponsibility of the NTSB news release doesn’t end there.

Although the NTSB did acknowledge that a failed traffic management plan played a big role in the Oct. 23, 2016 crash, much of the news release focused on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s medical certification process.

There was much more to this story, however.

According to the NTSB, a motorcoach ran into the rear of a stopped tractor-trailer in the westbound lanes of Interstate 10 outside Palm Springs. The early-morning crash resulted in the death of the bus driver and 12 of his passengers. Meanwhile, the truck driver and 30 bus passengers suffered injuries.

The truck and other traffic had been stopped on the highway by police for utility work. When traffic resumed, the truck did not move. The motorcoach struck the rear of the truck two minutes later.

“Despite the fact the truck driver was severely obese and at a very high risk for obstructive sleep apnea, he had not been tested for the condition,” the NTSB news release stated. “And although the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Medical Review Board has developed guidance for screening for obstructive sleep apnea, the FMCSA has not disseminated this guidance to the medical examiners it certifies to perform commercial driver’s license medical examinations.”

In addition, the news release said the bus driver suffered from untreated diabetes.

Based on the information the NTSB provided the media, it was clear the crash was being largely depicted as a problem with the medical certification process.

But a review of the NTSB’s findings revealed there was much more going on in this crash outside of the drivers’ assumed medical conditions.

The truck driver had violated his hours-of-service, and the bus driver received only four hours of sleep in the previous day-and-a-half. And although both of those factors appear to be much larger contributors to possible fatigue, they were both omitted from the news release. Even if the truck driver did suffer from sleep apnea, assuming it was the reason for his fatigue is a bit of a stretch.

And saying that the FMCSA hasn’t disseminated sleep apnea guidance to medical examiners is more than misleading. Plenty of OOIDA members can attest that plenty of certified medical examiners have told them they must take a sleep study because of FMCSA regulations.

All of these omissions and inaccuracies appear to be more than a coincidence.

Sleep apnea, specifically, has been a hot topic in the trucking industry. Recently, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced a bill that would force the U.S. Department of Transportation to push through a final rule to require testing of sleep apnea for truck drivers and railroad workers.

In March 2016, the FMCSA and Federal Railroad Administration released an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to gather information to if a sleep apnea testing mandate was necessary. The FMCSA released a report in July that said the agency “has determined there is not enough information available to support moving forward with a rulemaking action, and so the rulemaking will be withdrawn.”

The withdrawal was made official in August. The NTSB publicly spoke out against the withdrawal.

In addition, proponents of Booker’s bill cited NTSB statistics that sleep apnea had been listed as the probable cause in 10 highway and rail crashes in the past 17 years. Only two of those 10 crashes – one in 2000 and one in 2009 – involved a heavy-duty truck. The addition of the California crash would increase the total of heavy-duty fatality truck crashes blamed on sleep apnea to three over a span of nearly 20 years.

Simply, the evidence isn’t there to force a mandate. Because if the FMCSA is going to place this expensive burden on truck drivers and carriers, the reason for doing so needs to be more than a guess. Unlike the NTSB’s latest determination, it must be based on facts.