Attention all CDl Holders

i understand what you are trying to get at HOWEVER, rarely does Hyperglycemia cause strokes, you can have stroke like symptoms, but the only way to diagnose a stroke is IN a HOSPITAL with Equipment, and unless you are a medical professional in direct care of him or immediate family member, the hospital wouldn't release that information to you.

 

You have to take a deep breath and read it like this

 

Reading that made my head hurt! And I'm still not clear on exactly what happened and what he's asking! I couldn't read it twice!!

 

Just remember, we are all at attention.

 

Being older & drinking 5hr energy drinks could be bad, or could make you do this.

 

AGREED,

HIPAA (Spelling) is the first problem.

Second no one outside of a hospital can diagnose a stroke. Running bad sugar in a motor coach leads to other insitutional problems preexisting within any company that allows a known driver with a history of it.

I actually battled Hyperglycemia for about a year until that got sorted. Now I fight high blood pressure which IS stroke country for me at times when it gets towards around 230/150 or higher. I used to have BP issues in trucking prior to 1991 and it's back with a vengeance. Even today Im probably pushing 150/110 which is too #### high.

Many of my relatives in my bloodline will drop from a stroke. When they do, a important blockage turns up somewhere vital and within a few minutes that is that for them. Burial time.

A bigger issue which is a clue in the posting shows me that the driver potentially has been all day awake waiting to be dispatched. Now it's time to drive all night.

Forget it. It is not going to happen very well.

Nothing in our entire stack of FMCSA has ever ever address the matter of "Awake time" I have a theory that when you finish a proper sleep and hit the floor for a bright new day, you have a certain amount of awake time before you must get rest again. Which to me is roughly 18 hours or so give or take a couple.

I advocate very strongly for that awake time regulation, drivers need to know that if a dispatcher keeps them waiting all day on a 7PM then overnight delivery load.. it's just abuse. But I am just one dinosaur no one pays attention to. And so nothing will ever be done.

I myself cannot stand buses. I have ridden them enough to know only two specific drivers on two very specific routes where they keep one RPM and does not slap the brakes all the time or reach the tires too much. I might get some good sleep then. Otherwise... Im watching that SOB all the way down his or her run end to end. Ive ridden my last bus 25 years ago.

I know nothing about buses. (Actually I do some...) a interview with a regional bus owner took care of that idea for life long ago.

Im not trying to be difficult. But There are problems with being sure that someone has rested and is ready to go when the schedule says to go instead of waiting all day to run all night for example. There are night people and there are day people. And our current HOS system flips the clock on everyone every 18 hours or so. Some like myself have no clock anymore because of it but I am a big time night runner.

Good luck. Think about other ways to travel besides buses if at all possible. There are getting to be just plain too many wrecks in them things.

 

Ok, hard to read but I get your point. Not all motor coach drivers are in poor health, but you have to be careful about the companies you chose to ride on.

As for logging off-duty during the middle of the day while they are waiting on the tour group to do whatever it is they do, yes that happens all the time and is perfectly legal under the hours of service that passenger carriers operate under. Bus drivers also only have to take 8 hours off-duty, not 10 like property carrying drivers, and can split that 8 up into segments of at least 2 hours. This means they can jump on and off-duty in two hours periods and literally work around the clock. They do not have a rigid 14 hour window like truck drivers.

Is this right, no. I was a coach driver back in 92-96, it was long days and they worked us like dogs even being a union shop. This has been a point of contention for me for a long time, since the hours of service for property carriers were changed back in 2003. If the FMCSA (well the FHWA back then) really wanted to save lives they would have required motor coach operators, who are responsible for 50+ lives in one vehicle, to comply with the same "safety based" rules they forced upon property carriers. My question to regulators has been, is a bus driver's circadian rhythm that much different from a truck driver's, OR did the bus industry just have better lobbyists than the trucking industry?

To the OP, I'm sorry your trip was bad, glad you stepped up and took action to protect the bus load of passengers.