To the Oregonian

This article which I submitted to the Oregonian was not published. However it outlines some of the current issues facing legislators on the issue of worker testing. Clearly my article is promoting BLT technology, it's an Op/Ed piece after all. The proposed new law was shelved.

An Oregonian editorial, “Don’t Make a Bad Marijuana Law Worse” (Feb 4), supports a bill that permits employers to test workers, including those taking legally prescribed marijuana, for drug use. Letters from readers have both criticized and supported this position. Some of the letters make reference to impairment testing which happens to be my special area of expertise. My company, Bowles-Langley Technology, Inc., (BLT), has been developing this technology for the past 10 years and has a practical system for testing workers for impairment before or during work.

The BLT Alertness Test, which takes two (2) minutes to complete, measures reaction time, orientation, decision making and general cognitive performance with a simple computer graphic-based test. Each person is asked to take the test 10 times to establish a baseline. In subsequent testing current performance is measured against this baseline. If an individual measures significantly below his or her baseline, and cannot improve this score in a retest, the individual should be considered to be severely impaired. Employers can develop appropriate policy for management of these individuals based on the nature of the job.

The perfunctory termination of an employee for trace elements of drug metabolites in urine or blood, without regard to his or her actual condition and ability to work, is an arbitrary and unnecessarily crude method to protect the workplace. Practiced as public policy, it actually makes our workplaces less safe because urine testing is used where impairment testing would be superior. Urine testing tests for specific illegal drugs and the results are typically not available for days. The use of legal drugs combined with fatigue or flu, for example, are factors much more likely to cause an employee to be dangerously impaired. But these obvious impairment factors are not considered by urine testing.

If the citizens of Oregon wish to prevent the use of illegal drugs by testing workers’ urine for evidence of past drug use, it is up to them and their representatives. But they should not be misled into thinking that this practice is driven by safety priorities because impairment testing addresses worker safety more efficiently. With the increasing cost of accidents, it is time that worker impairment be addressed directly and not be used as an excuse for promoting popular anti-drug laws that are irrelevant to the issue.

Sleep Trial

The sleep deprivation trial is complete. Aside from a couple of server problems it went exceedingly well. The trial was conducted at Anneke Heitmann's excellent lab at her Awake! Institute. During this trial subjects were kept awake for two nights (they were allowed a two hour nap on the second day.) Subjects were wired for EEG data and tested every two hours with a battery of tests, a driving simulator and the standard BLT Alertness Test.

We are now looking at the data to see how well the BLT test correlates with the other measures. In general there is some correlation between all the tests.

I would like to see an clear corelation between the BLT test and the subject's circadian patterns and a clear correlation with subject driving simulator performance in particular. But healthy human subjects are complex interactive data generators and we must deal with the real world data, obviously. There is a huge amount of material to look at from this trial and the results will be published as quickly as we can make sense of it.

Research is supported by the NIH.

Union County Accident

It is not my intent to have this blog focus exclusively on individual accidents. However this one in Union County, Florida was one many people followed to try to understand the cause. Here is an extract of a newspaper article from the Gainsville Sun that explains:

"Under rules that take effect in October [2007], a truck driver cannot drive more than 12 hours in Florida following 10 consecutive hours off duty. The report stated Wilkerson [the truck driver] had the opportunity for about 90 minutes to obtain rest.

"This placed Mr. Wilkerson in an extreme state of fatigue. Like the consumption of alcohol, an extreme state of fatigue places a driver in a temporary impairment state," the report stated. "While in this temporary state of impairment, Mr. Wilkerson's perception and reaction skills are impaired, his judgment is impaired, his attitude is impaired, his attentiveness and coordination are also impaired. Fatigue also affects the brain's thought processing by not allowing the brain to interpret and understand a hazardous traffic situation."

BY:
Lise Fisher (352-374-5092 or fisherl@gvillesun.com)

Fatigue and other Factors

Driver fatigue is estimated to be the cause of 100,000 highway crashes and 1,500 deaths each year. We would suggest the number attributed to fatigue could be much higher if driver fatigue were to be counted as a contributing condition. Nevertheless the numbers are daunting.

FATALITIES AND INJURIES

Overall: The U.S. Department of Transportation's Fatal Analysis Reporting System at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) projects that 43,300 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2006, down 0.3 percent from 43,443 in 2005. While deaths among passenger vehicle occupants and nonoccupants fell in 2006, motorcycle riders suffered a 5.4 percent increase. This was the ninth consecutive annual increase in motorcycle rider deaths.


By Vehicle Miles Traveled: The fatality rate — measured as deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled — as projected by NHTSA was 1.44 in 2006, down from 1.47 in 2005.


By Crash Type: In 2006 there were 5,930,182 police-reported motor vehicle traffic crashes, down 3.7 percent from 6,159,189 in 2005. Of total crashes, 1,710,000 caused injuries and 4,181,000 caused property damage only. NHTSA estimates 10 million or more crashes go unreported every year.


Work-Related: In 2005 crashes involving vehicles on public roadways were the leading cause of work-related fatalities, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, accounting for almost a quarter of all fatal work injuries.


By Age Group: In 2005 older people (65 and older) made up 15 percent of all traffic fatalities, 14 percent of vehicle occupant fatalities and 20 percent of pedestrian fatalities, in large part because they are frailer and more likely to die from their injuries than younger people. (See Older Drivers paper.) In 2004 there were 28 million older licensed drivers, up from 17 percent in 1994. The total number of drivers rose only 13 percent from 1994 to 2004.

In 2005 drivers between the ages of 15 and 20 accounted for 12.6 percent of all drivers in fatal crashes and for 16 percent of all drivers in police-reported crashes. In 2004 (latest available data) drivers in this age group accounted for 6.3 percent of all licensed drivers. To reduce high accident rates among young drivers, states are increasingly adopting graduated driver license programs, which allow young drivers to improve their skills and driving habits.

By Driver Behavior


Speeding: In 2005, 13,113 lives were lost due to speed-related accidents. Speeding was a contributing factor in 30 percent of all fatal crashes. In 2005, 38 percent of 15- to 20-year old male drivers who were involved in fatal crashes were speeding at the time of the crash. NHTSA says that speed-related crashes cost Americans $40.4 billion each year. A crash is considered speed related when the driver is charged with a speed-related offense or a law enforcement officer indicates that exceeding the posted speed limit, driving too fast for conditions or racing was a contributing factor.

Drunk Driving: There is an alcohol-related traffic fatality every 29 minutes. In 2006, 17,941 people died in alcohol-related crashes, up 2.4 percent from 17,525 in 2005 and was projected to be the highest level since 1992. Alcohol was involved in 41 percent of all crash fatalities in 2006. (See Drunk Driving paper.) Alcohol-related crashes are defined as those where someone involved, either a driver or a nonoccupant such as a pedestrian or bicyclist, had a traceable amount of alcohol in his or her blood.

Drunk Driving and Speeding: In 2005, 40 percent of intoxicated drivers (with a blood-alcohol content at or above 0.08, the definition of drunkenness) involved in fatal crashes were speeding, compared with 14 percent of sober drivers involved in fatal crashes.

Red Light Running: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) says that more than 900 people a year die and nearly 2,000 are injured as a result of vehicles running red lights. About half of those deaths are pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles who are hit by red light runners.

Fatigue: NHTSA statistics show that at least 100,000 crashes and 1,500 deaths each year are the result of drivers falling asleep at the wheel. A 2002 poll, conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, found that 100 million drivers, close to half of American adult drivers, drive while drowsy and nearly two out of ten admitted to having fallen asleep at the wheel. New Jersey passed a law in 2003 that equates falling asleep at the wheel with reckless driving, and, if a driver falls asleep and kills someone in a crash, he or she can be charged with vehicular homicide and serve up to ten years in jail and pay fines. Although at least four states have considered similar legislation, New Jersey is the only state with such a law on the books.

Near Miss with Tired Pilots

Airline pilots flying while fatigued poses risk to safety
27 June 2007

A BBC News investigation has revealed growing concerns among airline pilots that fatigue is leading to potentially dangerous incidents in the air. The BBC has heard from 32 pilots who say they have flown while unfit due to fatigue.

The BBC can reveal that an incident – with the first officer sleeping and captain "resting" – required a "quick reaction to avert disaster" as an airliner began turning into the path of another plane.

In another serious incident, investigated by the AAIB (Air Accident Investigation Branch), a fatigued pilot nearly stalled an aircraft in mid–air shortly after take off.

The BBC can also reveal the results of a survey for the pilots union BALPA (British Airline Pilot's Association) which suggests a majority of air crews who responded are affected by fatigue – and that pilots believe passengers should be concerned.

BALPA found that 81% of pilots who responded said that their performance had been affected by fatigue. Pilots the BBC has spoken to blame the growing intensity of the aviation industry – and some say their managers are ignoring their concerns.

One pilot, 'Andy', told the BBC: "I have fallen asleep unintentionally in the air – where you close your eyes for a second and realise that ten minutes have passed."

BALPA commissioned the survey, of over 500 of members, following inquiries by the BBC.

Aviation consultant Dr Ian Perry has treated dozens of fatigued pilots: "You might miss a radio call when you're thinking about 'is my altitude right?' That's chronic fatigue. I think in the last five years it has doubled. So if I see one or two people a fortnight, I'm now seeing four or five people a fortnight, something like that."

Dr Perry added: "... We've been skating on fairly thin ice for some years and have got away with it. For us to have a true fatigue accident I say it could happen at any time now. And then people will turn around and say 'well, why didn't you do something about it?'"

There are limits to how many hours pilots can fly and there's no evidence these are being breached. Most airlines told the BBC that their average hours had barely changed in recent years. But two thirds of pilots surveyed by BALPA said they were flying more than five years ago.

Some short haul crews now do six flights – six landings and take-offs a day – without leaving the cockpit. These require the most concentration and are regarded as the critical periods in the flight.

A pilot working in the low cost sector has told the BBC of an incident when an aircraft, with dozens of passengers onboard, began to turn putting it on a collision course with another passenger plane. Air Traffic Control (ATC) radioed an urgent warning but there was no response.

The aircraft bound for Europe had been on autopilot, while the captain rested. This had been agreed between the two men, and left the first officer in charge. However, on realising there was no response to the ATC warning the captain told the BBC: "So I looked across, and saw he was asleep."

However, in the official report to his airline the captain didn't mention that his co–pilot had been asleep. "I didn't want to get him into trouble. There's no two ways about it. I knew that he would probably be pulled in and be treated fairly harshly ... effectively its gross negligence."

However, many pilots and experts told the BBC that admitting their fatigue to managers is a taboo. Pilot 'Andy' said: "I was genuinely fatigued and whenever I reported that I was completely exhausted the operator says 'are you refusing to do the duty?'. He should not have been asking me, let alone bullying me into doing it."

The pilot added that this "routinely goes on."

This view was reflected in the BALPA poll which found that a third of pilots believed they'd risk disciplinary action if they reported their fatigue. More than one in ten (12%) would carry on flying, without reporting it. Forty percent said they would report fatigue.

The chairman of BALPA, Mervyn Granshaw, claims that fatigue is "the single biggest issue facing aviation today. At the moment we are not seeing it appear as accidents or incidents but we're getting closer to that point."

Another fatigue-related incident published in an AAIB bulletin took place at Birmingham Airport in 2004 (but not reported until April 2006) involving a passenger jet, with 85 passengers on board.

Shortly after leaving the ground the crew raised the plane's wing flaps instead of the landing gear. That created the danger the aircraft could stall – and potentially fall from the sky.

The captain had to lose altitude to increase speed – he recovered at less than 700 feet above the ground. An official investigation by the Air Accident Investigation Board concluded that fatigue was a key factor.

Captain David Chapman, head of flight operations at the UK's air regulator, the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) maintains the system is working: "We have the finest flight time limitations system in the world. I have no problems at all in saying that I don't believe we have a major fatigue issue."

In a written statement responding to concerns about pilot fatigue, John Hanlon, Secretary General of the ELFAA (European Low Fares Airline Association) said:

"Aircrew flying duties are strictly regulated by the CAA and the IAA in the UK and Ireland which ensures that no pilot can fly more than 900 hours per annum (average 17 hours per week). These safety limits are met by all airlines and are subject to regular audit.

"Europe's low fare airlines have an exemplary safety record and this has been delivered by making safety the number one priority at all times. ELFAA member airlines operate a Just Culture system, whereby all pilots are free to report any issues, which they feel impinge on safety, without having to divulge their identity."

Roger Wiltshire of BATA (The British Air Transport Association) said: "We don’t feel there is a fatigue issue in the industry. Pilots are flying well within the regulated flying hour limits, and in the UK we have some of the most regulated pilot flying hours and duty hours in the world. And although short haul pilots are flying more hours than they were that's because the schedules are more efficient."

FAA on Prescriptive Regulation

In testimony on 6 June 2007, before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Aviation, FAA Deputy Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety Peggy Gilligan responded to concerns voiced the day before by Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, about the FAA's response to the Board's urgent safety recommendations.

Her excellent comments on the fatigue issue are quoted here:

Flight and Duty time rules have been in existence since the 1950s, and the 121 domestic and 135 scheduled rules were updated in 1985. The rules on pilot flight time and rest have evolved along with advances in commercial air travel. The FAA is confident that, overall, the airline industry complies with the FAA's current rules. In the intervening time, much research has been done on fatigue, which has resulted in a better understanding of complex fatigue-related issues. The research tells us that this issue does not easily lend itself to a set of prescriptive rules. While the existing prescriptive rules have served us well, they do not allow for the flexibility needed to address the various flight regimes that exist.

Understanding the limits of a strictly prescriptive regulatory regime, we worked to alleviate fatigue through other means. Fatigue countermeasures were first developed by NASA, and include providing in-flight rest, as well as training crew members on the use of proper diet, exercising, and even caffeine to manage fatigue. Fatigue countermeasures are covered during Crew Resource Management (CRM) initial training and during CRM recurrent training.

It is also critical to understand the role that personal responsibility plays in fatigue and why prescriptive rules can only provide a framework for safety. Crew members, mechanics, air traffic controllers, everyone involved in the safety of flight must make a personal commitment to report for work well rested and ready to perform their duties. No regulatory scheme can instill that sense of personal commitment and professionalism.

One thing we know, aviation operations will always challenge us in the area of flight time and rest. Aircraft design allows for longer and longer flight times. Recently, FAA issued approval to Delta Airlines for flights in excess of 16 hours from New York JFK to Mumbai, India. This approval was our first implementation of a fatigue risk management approach. Delta proposed – and we analyzed and approved – a detailed plan to assure the crew is rested before the flight begins, is provided appropriate rest throughout the flight, and have sufficient rest before conducting the return flight.

The procedure specifically addresses the impact to circadian rhythm, including the recognized affect of circadian law which occurs at specific times in the daily cycle. This is an example of where we need to move in the future -- away from prescriptive rules and into fatigue risk management.

Air traffic

I am going to Washington DC next week to speak to FAA officials and to NTSB officials.
This article will be part of my package.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fatigued air traffic controllers contributed to four aviation mishaps in recent years, and may have been a factor in last year's Comair crash that killed 49 people, according to federal accident investigators.

The investigators are calling on the Federal Aviation Administration to revise work schedules and take other actions to prevent controllers from becoming tired on the job.

"Controllers are absolutely more tired now than they have ever been, and it's because they are forced to work overtime. This is an understaffed system, and the FAA is lying when they say it's not," said Doug Church, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

In a letter to the FAA, Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said it's still unclear what role fatigue played in the crash of Comair Flight 5191, but four other incidents "provide clear and compelling evidence" that controllers are sometimes operating while fatigued because of their work schedules and poor use of rest periods.

"That fatigue has contributed to controller errors," Rosenker wrote.
Union: 'This is a wonderful gift'

The air traffic controller's union jumped on the report as validation of its long-held claims that the system is severely understaffed and that controllers are being forced to work overtime against their wishes.

"This is a wonderful gift from the NTSB, to finally tell the FAA that their controllers need more rest," Church said.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the FAA has between 14,500 and 14,600 controllers, about 1,000 fewer than it had in late 2003. But, Brown pointed out, the peak number was based on a contract with controllers that anticipated growing air traffic, not the drop that followed the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Brown said the FAA will look at scheduling practices in light of the NTSB recommendation, but "many of the schedules we have in place are at the request of employees." She noted that the NTSB said it is also incumbent upon controllers to "use personal strategies" to maximize sleep and minimize fatigue.

The FAA determines rest requirements, but it negotiates with unions on how employees are rotated through shifts, Brown said.

"The (NTSB) recommendations don't say anything about understaffing," Brown noted. "There is mandatory overtime at a very small number of facilities."

In many cases, the FAA is able use controllers who request overtime -- or are on a volunteer list -- before seeking others to work overtime, she said.
Controller working on just 2 hours of sleep when plane crashed

In the August 27 Comair crash in Lexington, Kentucky, the lone air-traffic controller was working on just two hours of sleep, according to the NTSB.

The controller cleared the CRJ-100 to take off from the correct runway, which was 7,003 feet long, but the airplane mistakenly turned onto a shorter runway that was just half that length. The plane crashed into a fence and trees at the airport perimeter, killing 49 of the 50 people onboard.

While the NTSB is focusing on the crew's actions, and aviation experts say the controller was not required to observe the plane's departure, the NTSB is evaluating to what extent, if any, the controller's fatigue may have influenced events.

The controller in the tower had worked a 6:30 a.m.-to-2:30 p.m. shift the day before the accident, then returned nine hours later and worked from 11:30 p.m. until the 6:07 a.m. accident, the NTSB says. He told investigators his only sleep between shifts was a two-hour nap.

"Such limited sleep can degrade alertness, vigilance and judgment," Rosenker wrote.
A history of incidents

The four aviation mishaps that allegedly involved tired controllers all involved what are termed runway incursions -- instances in which aircraft or other vehicles improperly intruded onto operating runways.

The four incidents are:

# Chicago, Illinois, March 23, 2006: The NTSB letter says a controller cleared an Airbus A320 passenger plane to cross a runway and then, less than 15 seconds later, cleared a Boeing 737 to take off on the same runway. The pilot of the Boeing saw the Airbus and stopped before reaching the taxiway intersection. The controller told investigators he had slept only four hours during a nine-hour break between shifts.

# Los Angeles, California, August 19, 2004: A controller cleared a Boeing 737 passenger plane to taxi onto and take off from a runway at the same time that another plane, a Boeing 747, had been cleared to land on the same runway. The pilot of the landing plane saw the 737 and pulled up 12 seconds before a collision would have occurred, passing about 200 feet above the runway. The controller had slept five or six hours before returning to work, the NTSB letter says.

# Denver, Colorado, September 25, 2001: A controller approved a request from a Boeing 757 cargo plane crew to depart from a runway, even though the runway had been closed for construction. The aircraft passed within 32 feet of lights that had been erected in the construction zone. Investigators determined that the controller had slept less than two hours during a nine-hour period between work days.

# Seattle, Washington, July 8, 2001: A controller cleared a Boeing MD-80 passenger airplane to cross a runway at the same time a Boeing 767 passenger airplane was about to land on the runway. The pilots in the landing airplane hit their brakes to avoid a collision, stopping only 810 feet short of the MD-80. The controller was working his third shift in two days, with eight-hour rest periods between shifts.

The NTSB recommended the FAA and controllers' union revise work schedule policies and practices and modify shift rotations to minimize sleep disruptions. The FAA should also develop fatigue awareness programs, which should be taught at regular intervals, the NTSB said.

It commended the FAA for a new "resource management program" to help controllers detect controller and pilot mistakes.

Change the Rules

Quoted from the Columbian, Clark County, Washington:

Columbian editorial staff

Money can compete with safety when it comes to railroads, which is why it is encouraging that the government’s top railroad official is lobbying to change rules concerning workers’ schedules.

The change could lead to reduction in the number of train accidents caused by crew fatigue. The National Transportation Safety Board told Congress in February that fatigue has been a probable cause of 16 major train accidents in the past 23 years.

This policy change could impact a lot of people in Clark County. Vancouver, long a major switching and maintenance yard, has 450 train-yard and engine employees. More than 50 trains a day move through the terminal here.

Statistically, train workers already can expect to be involved in a fatal railroad accident if they spend a working lifetime on the tracks. There are simply too many people sitting, walking along or crossing tracks when they shouldn’t be.

What train engineers should not have to cope with is being so tired on the job that their physical state contributes to a wreck. Antiquated rules concerning the number of hours a person works versus the number of hours of rest between shifts are a problem.

Joseph Boardman, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, is asking Congress to repeal a 100-year-old law that regulates workers’ schedules, saying the laws are not up to date with scientific knowledge of the impact a lack of sleep has on workers. Boardman wants to require more rest between shifts, or shorter work days.

Right now, the Associated Press reports, train crews and signal workers can work 12 hours straight with 10 hours of rest. But if a train employee works even one minute less than 12 hours, law mandates just eight hours of rest. By the time one gets home, settles in and falls asleep, it isn’t hard to imagine workers getting inadequate sleep before they are due back at work. Unpredictable schedules are also a problem. If a worker doesn’t know when he might be called up next, how can he physically prepare and still have a decent family or social life?

While workers might crave more predictability and more rest, they also know any change is likely to hurt their pocketbooks if the industry has to hire more workers. Ensuring that current workers won’t face dramatic drops in income is key. Boardman and the National Transportation Safety Board need to continue working with unions representing train employees to find the best solution.