The Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association is claiming that the FMCSA may have illegally bypassed the rulemaking process by tacking on an appendix concerning sleep apnea testing to an unrelated rule.
OOIDA has filed a petition in federal court asking for the rule to be reexamined. Generally, new rules must go through a lengthy screening process before going in to effect. During the screening, every aspect of the rule is examined, which allows for feedback from the industry, the public, and the government. In this case however, the Department of Transportation allegedly skipped the screening process by adding an appendix to a rule which had already been screened and was in the final stages of approval.
In their petition, OOIDA claims that the “FMCSA is supposed to conduct a formal rulemaking before requiring sleep apnea testing for commercial truck drivers.”
Instead, the FMCSA tacked on the appendix to a rule concerning medical examiner certification integration (which can be read here). The appendix requires that if a medical examiner “detects a respiratory dysfunction, that in any way is likely to interfere with the driver’s ability to safely control and drive a commercial motor vehicle, the driver must be referred to a specialist for further evaluation and therapy.”
The appendix does not go as far as the FMCSA’s recent Medical Review Board recommendation which would require drivers with a BMI over a certain level to be automatically flagged for regular sleep apnea screening.
Regardless, OOIDA claims that the regulations required by the medical examiner rule can hurt drivers.
“These practices pull safe drivers off the road for protracted periods of time and force them to spend thousands of dollars on unwarranted tests and expensive exams,” OOIDA claims in the petition. “In worst-case situations, safe driving careers are ended and small businesses are forced to close. OOIDA members have experienced these consequences firsthand on too many occasions.”
Before taking the matter to federal court, OOIDA asked the FMCSA itself to reconsider the appendix, a request the agency denied in September.
Source: gobytrucknews, truckinginfo, fleetowner, overdrive, federalregister
Who benefits?
Certainly not the drivers.
Sleep apnea testing is for your own benefit. Which is why the government feels that it is necessary to shove it up your anus.
But only if you’re a commercial driver. If you’re the 4-wheeler who fell asleep at the wheel, we don’t care about your health…
I don’t care who benefits. I still lose.
You’re confusing sleep apnea with narcolepsy, SA had nothing to do with falling asleep but with breathing while asleep.
Who benefits? The medical industry, obviously, also the regulators who gain precedent for “back dooring” regulations that otherwise would have been objected to.
Who loses? All of us!
I’m not confusing them. They’ll tell you all day long that the testing is for your own benefit. If it’s for *my* benefit, then it should be optional, and they should pay the cost, if I *elect* to pursue it. When it’starts something I am *required* to do, at my own expense, it’seems benefitting somebody else. Who, doesn’t matter to me – what matters to me is that it’s happening at the expense of my health, safety, and finances. No other job puts people through this kind of intrusive and invasive activity, as a condition of employment. Not even military service. And we’re four times more likely to die in the line of duty, anyway. (Or perhaps because of this intrusive and invasive activity.)
Surgeons are involved in delicate and dangerous work – do they have to go through this? How about government regulators? They affect the health and safety of thousands of people, every day, but is there a law requiring them to go through this? Every motorist on the road can cause ano accident involving a commercial vehicle, but if DoT regulated all motorists as closely as they do us, there would be a revolution.
We’ve been identified as an easy minority to target, folks, and so we’really being driven out in favor of automated vehicles. It will happen to cars, next, probably starting with very young and very old drivers, and working toward the center. When all vehicles are automated, the next thing will be to make them externally controllable, so that your right to liberty can be revoked at any time, by simply programming your car to say “no” to you, or drive you to the detention center, whenever someone wants to detain you. I’love be long dead, by then, but that’s where this is heading. Like stop light cameras, which were only going to be used for accident/insurance claims, and are now used to record everything going on in a neighborhood, or the erosion of privacy rights on the premise of “no reasonable expectation of privacy”, this too, will expand in scope.
Actually my nephew had z major heart attack at 50 and they believe it is due to years of untreated apnea his heart is currently only functioning at 50%
First, if I am “forced” to wear a CPAP, I will turn in my CDL. Secondly, the FDA currently recognizes 3 types of treatment for sleep apnea. A mouthguard, surgery, and the CPAP. Companies and insurance companies love the CPAP machine because it can “monitor for compliance” where the other treatments cannot. As a driver, most companies will not give you a choice and that’s one of my biggest bitches about this sleep apnea thing whether are not the treatment actually helps or not.
Second, the company that I drove for, over one third of the drivers were required to be on CPAP. Isn’t that just a little bit suspicious?
Third, try out this scenario… You go camping for two weeks… There’s no electricity… You don’t use your CPAP machine… You come back and find that you don’t have a job because you are not in compliance even though you are on your own time.
Fourth, “is it legal for a company to fire you for what you do or don’t do on your own time? “Yes! In fact, I asked this question to the Bureau of labor via email, “if a company requires you to have their company logo tattooed on to your left arm and you refuse, can they fire you for that?” What do you think the answer was?
I’ve been on CPAP for over 18 years. I wear the mask every time I lay down to sleep. Annually, I go to my own MD for a review of my sleep apnea, have my downloads done, and discuss with the MD how I’m doing on the CPAP. Two years ago, my apparatus failed, for two weeks I had no CPAP. When I went in for download, the MD asked me about it. We discussed it. I explained that I felt like crap without it. That I took frequent breaks to avoid potential for falling asleep while driving. That I had gotten a replacement. Took the letter from my MD to the company MRO for my annual DOT physical. Discussed it with him. Got my med card renewed without any issues.
And for any that wonder, the treatment actually makes a difference. If you never get to REM sleep, you never really get to sleep, and your body pays the price. Your actual mileage may vary.
Drivers should stop driving now.
It’s all about money for an industry. They really don’t “care” about us or anyone they pass law and regulations that benefit someone or groups or industry all this in the name of protecting you or others. Just set back and watch all the regulation our government passed promise you every bit of it is designed to extort and benefit others.
WOW PPL,
What can we drivers do to help each other? Signa petition or something? It isn’t rite to get away with this sort of thing. We have to abide by rules and regulations so do they. Come on, how much do we have to put up with!
Nancy Gomez
Even after being tested you will then have lengthy paperwork that has to filled out by your GP and Sleep Drs which delays your medical examination screening!
But I agree what about the 4 wheelers traveling down the roads at twice our speeds!
Another way to extort money from driver’s…. The government is working well with the medical cartel.
The CPAP device manufacturers benefit from this.
As do the Sleep Centers.
I use a machine and it doesn’t fix my headaches.
I was flagged in 2011 because I snored since a toddler, now have a big belly, and big neck.
But, I am sure some snoring fat people feel better.
i am a driver iv’e been useing my cpap machine since 2010 thoes that need should consider not the goverment pushing it down ur throat but for your own health and public safety.
The only way to get the government’s attention is for every driver(company & O/OP) to park their trucks @ prescribed date & time & strike!! The government & the mega carriers don’t have the financial resources & man power to come after the approximately 4million qualified CDL holders in North America!! The government & the mega carriers also can’t afford to “rehire/recertify” drivers without suffering huge financial losses in the first 48-72 hours after the strike has begun!! As long as the government keeps us(the drivers) fighting amongst ourselves then we(drivers) don’t see the big picture!! My military training taught us that to defeat the enemy you have to divide & conquer!! That’s EXACTLY what the government & the mega carriers are doing to us(drivers) & we don’t even see it coming!!
Sleep apnea? Really? What about silly HOS rules that routinely deprive drivers of sleep regardless of their overall health?
Wow, sleep apnea. Knock yourself out FMCSA.
I agree with D ran we should all stop driving at least for 10 days and show this country what it would be like without us
We’re already too financially squeezed to do that. Pay rates are too low and government-mandated health insurance costs are too high. Most of us can’t afford the risk of losing coverage through our employers, by stopping work for that long, and employers are already bringing in foreigners and computers to do our jobs in our place. *Someone* will move the freight, and all we’ll do is starve. The country wold adapt, and we’re the only ones that would suffer.
In fact, if we stopped moving freight for a year – and it actually stopped, which is unlikely – the people who make these decisions and benefit from the outcomes, still wouldn’t be the ones to suffer. First, the poor would suffer, then the working class – us. The rich would easily ride it out.
Protesting regulation by quitting just wouldn’t work to fix the regulation. It gets us out from under yhe regulation (for yhe time being), but it doesn’t change the regulations. It’s like winning a war by running away. You might live longer, but you do so by losing – and if you live long enough, it will still catch up to you.
The machinery to treat”sleep apnea”can easily cause pneumonia and death. This problem needs to be called what it is, “emphasima “, the drivers involved need to be given disability checks from uncle Sam immediately, and retired from service. Don’t worry, for most ofamous us, this would be an improvement in quality of life and everybody wins really ,because none of us want to be unsafe! Safety, Safety, buckaroo!
MrYowler I have to respectfully disagree
With in 3to 4 days there would be no gas in the stores no food in the stores factories backed up with product and I REALLY believe we could get most of what we want and need by the 5th day
Theoretically you are right short circuit. If every truck driver, or even a large enough percentage of drivers would commit to such a strike at one time we would be able to affect some serious changes. Problem is how do we organize such a large scale demonstration on a national scale? Most will be afraid of getting canned, others afraid of lost income during a strike. The vast majority of us are “company” drivers and reliant upon the mega-corps who have us by the short and curlies by way of DAC reports. And without a unified voice and set of demands there would be confusion as to what the strikes goals are. Then if we got the attention of the regulator such changes clearly can’t come about overnight, so when would the strike end?
Basically I’m all for it in theory, and have been racking my brain trying to figure out how sick a thing could possibly be organized, but have as of yet come up with more problems than solutions. Any thoughts anyone?
I agree with a lot of comments in here as I was hit by a BS situation. Over ten years ago I had a seizure in which I now take medication. After seven years of no issues I renew my DL and there is code. It states I can no longer drive in the US. The US has a law that you have to be siezure free for ten years which I am but without meds. The catch is in Canada if you had seizures they will not allow you to have your Commercial DL if you don’t take meds. The medical board just stripped me of my job and they don’t care. I say stop driving across north America but before thats done make sure we ALL know what our demands are. They will fulfill them and back pay for our time down. We just need all drivers to unite. Its the only job where you can lose a months pay for an honest mistake but cops get suspended with pay when they wrongfully shoot someone. Its time to fight back.
If every truck stopped driving in this country for 1 or 2 days straight it would ruin this country. The problem is that there is too many people worried about there job instead of standing up for what is right. This country needs our trailers so if everyone did a strike it would wake them up . Make a date and post it everywhere for all drivers to not drive on it. Like before Black friday or Christmas when ita busy shopping time. ” Lets make America Great Again”
I believe that we could give our demands to the OOIDA and they could take them to the FMCSA.and tell them that if these demand aren’t met by a certain date that we will shit down. The lame excuse that I hear most is I can’t afford it. The majority of drivers stay out 3-4 weeks and go home for approximately 4 days that’s about all it would take to shit everything down so they really wouldn’t loose anything there is already such a driver shortage their not going to fire anyone
OOIDA cannot have anything to do with talks of a trucker strike. Read the act that deregulated trucking. It forbids one from engaging in the act of organizing a trucker strike with the threat of prison. So OOIDA could give them a list of demands, but there would be no threat of shutting down from them.
Excuse me that should be shut down sorry bout that
Come on people how long are we going to be pushed around. How much more are we going to take????? ELD’s. useless sleep test. Speed limiters cameras watching you 24-7 REALLY PEOPLE!!!!!!! Come on grow a pair and stand up for YOURSELVES!!!! I was traveling down I- 75 today at 74 mph and being passed by cars like I was sitting on the side of the road and they want speed limiters on trucks REALLY!!! How abut the 762 year old guy driving the 40 ft motor home pulling the car down the road with no restrictions on him no health card no sleep test no limit on driving no speed restriction what’s good for one is good for ALL PEOPLE PLEASE WAKE UP ….. OTS NOT Going TO STOP UNLESS WE STOP IT !!!!!!
What happen to doctor patience confidentially? Bet the airline’s Captions or Co-Captions don’t have to take the test. What makes them more special than us? The deal with more people than we do! Or how about the Tour Buses Operators. Yea those sob’s who like to drive at 90 mph in the middle of the night, driving like a bat out of hell. But, when they crash by dam the trucking industry gets another law. ATA is behind every last one of these new laws. What if you do these test and lets say you have to use a machine? Who is going to pay for it? What if you have the Obama Care and it does not cover it? Who is going to foot the bill? What are they going to say when the driver was asleep in his/her bunk and they find them dead as the hose has wrapped around his neck and suffocated him during the night? OPPS!! Yea right. Who is going to now feed his family pay the bills? BY DAM NOT D.O.T. So what gives them the right to enter my home? They made me take the test as my medical was due. My doctor was just following the rules he was sent, but when I was sitting in his office, the guy next to me asked me what I was filling out. When I told him, I asked did you have to fill one out? The gentleman mid 50’s goes no that is why I asked. When I confronted my doctor, I said hey is this discrimination! He say I am just doing what D.O.T. has asked me too do. My response, so every fat guy who drives big truck has 6 months to get this crap done. Sure enough the next man walked in, he was fat, the receptions gave the man a sleep test form. Not saying I do or I do not have, but it is my business not theirs. Secondly, according to all their data and information they have gathered for all these colleges, professors, and outside vendors testing people, they concluded sleep apnea does not cause accidents. With that said, why do I have to take this test when the pilots, military pilots, State Troopers, Police Officers, Tour Bus Operators, City Bus Operators, The Cab’s, The Ship Captains (Carnival Cruise) Ship’s Captain’s (the containers in from across seas) School Bus Operators and lastly Joe Doe and Jane Doe who operate the four wheeler next to the big truck doing 100 mph cause they are late for their Starbucks, don’t have to take the test? All we drivers hear is how can we make these trucks safer, and safer, well they/we are as safe as the car in front of us is. When your in the court of law, the law does not discriminate on what color, race, or religion, the jury does that for us. When a driver of a big truck is standing in front of the judge for a ticket, the judge is not going to ask us, “DID YOU USE YOUR MACHINE LAST NIGHT?” The judge will give us the fine plus points as we should have known. When a four wheeler stands in front of the judge to get their punishment they get options. First They will not be asked if they used their machine last night, it is a violation of their civil rights, so that question is out. Secondly, all their tickets get a reduced fine. NOT US! Third, they get traffic school, so their insurance does not go up. NOT US! Fourth, when they finish traffic school their record will be clean. NOT US! But the law does not discriminate against people, the people discriminate against people. The people who make the laws, say we do not discriminate against anyone. Beg to differ. In the last 49 years of sleeping never had an issue. Now if I do not wear Dearth Vader’s mask, Luke I am your father, D.O.T. might suspend my license, or we don’t no yet. In closing, now D.O.T. has invade our homes, life styles, the daily routine, how we shower, how we wipe our ass, and ect. Again we as drivers are getting bent over. Well lets see what this new president has to offer us. Not saying I did or did not vote for either as I do not vote period. Stay safe drivers, keep the grease side down..
I wouldnt have minded the sleep test they forced on me due to my BMI. But 1- the BMI chart is unrealistic! 2- it was ordered by a CHIROPRACTOR doing DOT physicals. 3- I had a serious sinus infection, upper resp. infection, sore throat, cough, HOW is anyone going to sleep PERIOD in that condition, let alone pass a sleep study?? They didnt send me to any “specialist”. They handed me a machine, told me how to use it, then read the bogus results the next day. They forced a CPAP machine on me, charging me 10025$ And expected compliance! I could barely breath without it, let alone using it. FINALLY I get back on the road, driving TEAM… The truck never sits still more than an hour! You cant use the machine in a moving vehicle, per warranty, because water gets in the machine…. I applied to a new company, current company asks how they can keep me. I said, GET RID OF MY CPAP. They retested me without the infections and PROVED I didnt have sleep Apnea.
One driver they sleep tested SIX times! He passed EVERY one! They said, do it again, he said so long.
I have sleep apnea. I went thru a full week of orientation with a company then they found out that I have apnea and would not hire me because they called it an upper respiratory disease and said the law would not allow them to hire me. I haven’t worn my cpap for over 10 years now and I never mention apnea to any employers. I don’t have any problems sleeping so I actually believe this sleep apnea BS is just making doctors and manufactures rich. Anyone that takes the sleep test will be diagnosed with apnea. I am now retired so I don’t have to worry about the fmcsa and their idiotic rules. Keep on trucking Brothers. God Bless and protect you.
Wouldn’t expect anything less outta political/official drug dealers. Sneaking regulations and laws in to sell more pharmaceuticals to get filthy rich. caring nothing about people. Other then the money they can get outta people.
Well you can tell Newer drivers from Older hands, just by reading some of these comments.
I don’t understand why some people are so against the CPAP machine. One driver mention that they don’t even put the military through this type of testing, well my friend you’re very wrong they absolutely do it’s one of the first things they check is your breathing. And yes if you don’t wear CPAP and you sleep at night you will stop breathing at times which could be very dangerous for your heart and all your other organs of your body because of pumping of the blood actually stops so I think that should be enough right there to alarm anyone with common sense to worry about keeping their health in good shape and in good condition bus not wearing machine will cause you to be drowsy during the day and fall asleep this happens all the time. Drivers have been known to fall asleep behind the wheel during the day even after they slept a good 8-10 hours at night they still wake up extremely tired and groggy for the rest of the day that’s because they need to correct they’re sleeping conditions. I believe anybody that operates any sort of vehicle being a little car motorcycle or a semi truck needs to be tested and if they have it they need to have a CPAP machine and wear it if not then they should be stripped of their driver’s license it’s as easy as that that’s just as bad as somebody being drunk behind the wheel you could kill somebody and hurt somebody
I’m getting tired of those WITH apnea comparing their experience to those of us fat necked drivers who DON’T have apnea. There is no study I know of linking the fatigue related crashes to fatigue induced not by our lifestyle, but to a medical condition. Give me THAT report, pay for my sleep study, and I will happily go on Cpap.