Fatigue
A letter from ETSC to European Commission for Transport Adina-Ioana Vălean on prioritising transport safety during and after the COVID-19 crisis. Download the letter.
More than a thousand bus, coach, truck drivers and their union representatives gathered outside the European Commission’s HQ in Brussels earlier this week in protest over fears that new EU rules will lead to shorter rest times and increased fatigue. The European Transport Workers Federation, a trade union, says the European Commission’s new Road Initiative , expected to be launched on 31 May, contains a bundle of measures meant to shorten weekly rest periods for drivers and extend their driving time. The ETF says […]
A report by researchers at the University of Ghent into current labour practices in the European aviation industry warns that safety is being compromised by a ‘race to the bottom’ in employment practices. The researchers say pilots, particularly those entering the labour market, are increasingly hired on insecure ‘zero hours’ contracts, are working longer hours in order to pay off large debts accrued during training, and are disinclined to call in sick, report fatigue or even report safety concerns. A patchwork of national rules […]
The role of driver fatigue in driving safety is a complex one, especially within commercial road transport, which is the focus of this review. The core issue is one of working time and the opportunity this offers for rest and recuperation from work, together with the possibility of presenting for work unimpaired by fatigue and loss of sleep. However, powerful economic and social forces influence and control the normative pattern of work of commercial drivers. Working time is, after all, one of the basic […]