Does One Need Hearing In Both Ears To Drive Professionally OTR to All 48 States & Canada?

Depends on the doctors giving the physical, some tests will test each ear, some will just see if you can hear. Personally having both ears working properly I prefer so I can tell which direction the sound is coming from,. I have seen some with barely any hearing still to better than some with great hearing because they have been like that most of life and dealt with it.

 

I am a deaf Trucker. OTR and local for a combined 30 plus years.

I used two hearing aids to maintain compliance with the DOT regulation requiring you to hear 500 hertz, 1000 hertz and 2000 hertz at 40 db or better on your hearing chart.

My hearing quits at roughly 5500 hertz past 3500 it's pretty much useless. And I need 90 db in one ear and about 78 in the other to get anything from sound without aids. The aids I wear now provide me with very close to 10 db at the bottom of the chart all the way up to 6000 hertz. Especially the 250, 500 and 1000 and 2K.

The second part of the hearing test... pay attention.

A TRUCKING COMPANY MAY do a MORE STRICT Test or choose not to hire deaf drivers with corrected and legal hearing as proven by a chart from audiologist per FMCSA regulations. Covenant tested me in a room with 50+ people at the same time, all talking. The doctor whispered what color was my shirt and there was NO way I hear him. Of course Covenant kicked me out and says I am not hireable. I made a federal case of it. and DOT plus FMCSA settled it saying that is lawful and no harm done. I find someone else to run for.

So.

Go to a Audiologist who has a proper sound room, test there see where exactly your hearing is.

Then be fitted with properly PRESCRIBED hearing aids (These run about 5000 dollars retail for two...) and are medical devices like Glasses etc. then go back into that sound room and test again against the chart.

You SHOULD be able to get to and way below the 40 db threshhold of 500, 1000 and 2000 hertz.

Once you have that, plus a complete chart. Keep everything with you. Go find work as a trucker.

Anyone who shows discrimination against you stands to lose big under the ACA act. Ive had two employers display that kind of problem. One with a conversation with me sorted that out on the spot and he got educated. The other was particularly bad and one of the reasons I dusted Maryland off my shoes and moved south and west for more opportunities in that line of work related to trucking. I found a better people who took anyone and everyone and worked around whatever flaws they had.

I tell you right now. There are a range of sounds outside of the minimum requirements you need to pay attention to in a big truck. Air is the big one. Yelling is the other. I am in the process of replacing my hearing aids this year. Frankly Ive done too much shooting these last three years, something about 25000 rounds in handgun colt and about 4000 in slugs. Plus a few hundred in both powder rifle and modern carbine. Shoot up my hearing pretty good.

 

I know someone with hearing aids, if I make a certain sound I can hear them squealing in her ear. She then has to turn them off so she can hear a little bit. One day I was talking to her and I was trying to figure out where that squeal was coming from. so with hearing aids it can be trouble, but then when she gets into them loud places she just unplugs them and smiles while I have to listen to that noise. I do have ear plugs for that now.

 

Hearing in one ear is fine as long as the better ear meets the Regs.

A person is physically qualified to drive a CMV if that person: First perceives a forced whispered voice in the better ear at not less than five feet with or without the use of a hearing aid or if tested by use of an audiometric device, does not have an average hearing loss in the better ear greater than 40 decibels at 500Hz, 1000HZ and 2,000 Hz with or without a hearing aid when the audiometric device is calibrated to the American National Standard Z24.5-1951.



Last Updated : April 1, 2014

 

WHAT? Louder please!

 

That's called Feedback. The molds in her ears (Or any ear) do not fit well anymore. The molds are like 30 bucks probably not even that much plus a week of replacement in a dedicated hearing aid lab. USUALLY when there is enough age in a hearing aid (mine are pushing 15 years and need either replacement or rebuilding...) and have been feedbacking a while.

The hearing aid takes in a sound, makes it really strong and ships it out. The problems begin when the mold is not fitting that ear precisely and leaks. The hearing aid actually hears that output from itself, and proceeds to amplify it. And boom. Squeal. And eventually it will burn out basically fry.

Now...

It is a form of blessing to be deaf because I don't know what it is to hear every little thing all the time day and night. But at the same time it is good to have them working properly so really important sounds get through with no feedback.

People sometimes get stupid about hearing aids. And it causes way more problems than it solves socially. For example, telling someone to turn it up or turn it down or some silly thing in words. They know #### well it's working or not. And it does not help the relationship, whatever it might be at all.

One of the things the new digital aids introduced about 15 years ago, these are my first from that era, if a sound comes in say from NSSA Winchester VA Annual Artillery shoot from Civil War using live ammuntion the computer in both aids hear the KBAOOM and the scream of the shell going downrange and simply refuses to allow that dangerous sound to get through. So all I hear is a THUMP. Listen to that all day long no problem.

Today's hearing aids feature bluetooth and micro radio technology capable of talking to a cell phone with the right app for it. To be adjusted by the owner to taste. Im going back the other way towards the old analog ones due to battery consumption. It costs me about 25 to 40 dollars a month in batteries to feed the ones I have now. The old analogs served me well in trucking and gets up to 5 weeks on a set of two batteries depending on season of the year or 5 days in -50.

Anyway I'll add on to this topic as it develops. There is a whole lot that goes into hearing. If you don't have it, you really don't know what you are missing. I was fitted with aids when I was right around 4 or so at Hopkins in Baltimore. And they were incredibly expensive in late 60's dollars. something that converts to 10K and beyond at the time in today's money. Inflation takes care of the rest. 1500 in the 80's become 5000 today.

But squealing and screaming aids take that person to the audiologist and get new molds fitted. In about a week or two those will come back and be perfect with everyone happy again.

 

EH?!

HUNH?!

Sometimes people turn shades of colors not naturally available to those who are happy. He he he.

I'll say this one time. Before I do, I beg the moderators to understand that this is strictly a fact of life most people don't understand sometimes...

In marriage or in love with someone, with a dark room or late at night with that person, there is absolutely no need for talking. =) It is easier to comprehend if there are two deaf people who cannot hear for nothing and rely on sign language. Without light the language does not function. But... needless to say usually they are well past that problem with each other.

My Pa used to crack up and lose it at the dinner table when I was a child relating some sport or other with a large group of deaf kids. What was going on for him was the mental image of a crowd of football players trash talking each other while the football flies and bounces unattended on the field.

NYC was alot of fun to me at times. Sometime gets in the way in rush traffic and leans on the horn. I know that is going on but ignore it. Ive got bigger problems such as 18 wheels... well one person ran up to me and yelled up "Are you some kind of special deaf stupid? don't you hear my horn?"

I told him yea, pointed to the hearing aids and then leaned on my dual air horns.

The police showed up at that point in time to have a one way conversation about that hospital two blocks down in a quiet zone. SHEESH. lol.

 

After careful research, I realised that things have changed between Canada and America as of 2002.

A agreement was written in 1999 but not implemented until later years to allow CDL drivers to go into Canada from America and supposedly vice versa.

Apparently Canada will mark a deaf CDL license and America will not allow this driver entry into our Country. And apparently the USA drivers are being issued letters that due to their grandfathered (That was me until 2013...), waivers or other exception they will no longer pass into Canada.

Fortunately the numbers of deaf CDL drivers are pretty low.

Here is the source material.

U.S., Canada Reach Agreement on Commercial Driver Conditions

Now... moving a little bit further.

A explaination stands that in our Nation's history deaf people DID NOT have the right to drive. (Or anything until the war years 1939-1946 where they were specifically mobilized into very loud factories during war productions where the noise does no damage to them. Whereas a normal person with full hearing became damaged and unable to continue working after a time. From about 1920 to roughly the late 60's deaf people in the USA had no right to drive. Period. In the 70's things began to change and evidently changed enough for someone like me to gain access to Class A trucking in the 80's I have no reason to believe that I am not the first or was part of the first group of HI or deaf truckers to gain a class A in those days. It was quite a storm of discrimination and controversy.

Other Nations like Japan denied specifically deaf people from driving until 2008 There are approximately a number of nations in the world that still to this day deny deaf drivers the right to drive, much less drive a CMV.

What was very interesting from my experiences, when I was part of ground school in FAA learning about aviation, at that time in the 80's FAA had very specific procedures for "Radio out" visual flight or even very limited skyways instrument flight depending on specific altitudes, direction of flight and most especially encountering Controlled Airspace around such as Dulles Airport or KBWI etc. And it was possible for me to gain a pilots license. I stated possible because at that time in life I was much more focused on trucking because that is what life was for me. Nothing else.

Anyway. There you have it.

There is more, but I will need some time to absorb the relatively rapid ongoing changes against CDL truckers who are hearing impaired and drivers who are deaf and still denied the right to drive. Among other things such as Insulin etc.

 

I am deaf in my right ear (no ear drum at all) and passed the physical no problem. Without a waiver, you will need to hear someone whispering something behind you with one ear. You just need one good ear.