Medical Certificates, what a joke!

My CPAP machine is less than a year old. I don't see anywhere where you can plug any sort of card into it.

 

They make a Cpap that takes it, most do not. If / When they change the rules, you will need a new machine.

Mark

 

Alabama requires you to present the long form when you renew your CDL...

 

Better not wish that, bud. Airline pilots have to retire at 60 and any medication like Prozac puts them on the "no fly list".

Lots of truckers are on AD's, so that would put them on the no CDL list.

 

The retirement age is now 65 for commercial pilots. As for the drug thing, I wish the DOT would adopt a list like the FAA uses. Right now the drug list system is up to the DOT Doctor and the trucking company. They should have a list of the no drive drugs standardized.

Mark

 

I simply don't understand people that want more government control over their lives.

 

Neither do I. Heck you can buy cough syrup OTC that will make you wasted, but someone on a drug like Prozac which doesnt make most people sleepy, they need to ban?

This country has gone wacko.

 

By DOT rules you can't use that OTC cough syrup. I really don't want a driver that is on Anti-Depresent drugs driving a 40ton truck on the highway with me. But I know in current state of affairs it's happening all the time.

If truck drivers would follow the rules and not be pushed by money and / or dispatch to get the load there no matter what, it would be a bit safer. But in all reality more than half the drivers on the road today break the rules. It maybe just cheating the books that 7 minutes here and there, but it is cheating. Any loop hole or slack in the system will be abused by some companies and drivers, so DOT will never put it in writing. They are the ones getting into the accidents that kills a family and makes us all look bad.

Mark

 

For the two companies I have driven for, both of them sent the drivers to authorized medical clinics. Since the last company went bankrupt, and I haven't gotten hired on anywhere else yet, my medical card expired earlier this month.
Thing is, my cdl was to expire next week. Luckily, I have already renewed mine.
If you are out of a job, and your state requires a current medical form (my state does not), would you have to get a physical on your own? If the doctor sends you for a sleep test, and you are not employed and have no insurance, how can you be expected to pay thousands of dollars for a sleep test so you can pass a physical, to renew your cdl?
This mess is getting way too complicated. If the Federal Government is going to MANDATE sleep studies, they should be provided FREE of charge to all drivers.

 

Just because a driver is on anti-depressant drugs does not make him a danger to you out on the road. Someone taking medications is not automatically crazy, suicidal, risky, etc. An anti-depressant just helps to regulate the brain chemistry, really no different than any other drug that is needed for any other medical condition.