Although the trend is towards fewer fatalities in road crashes, the annual rate of decline is levelling off and still more than 42,000 people are killed each year on EU roads. A comprehensive, road safety strategy, guided by numerical targets, is needed to address this large public health problem. Reducing injuries by driver impairment is an important part of that activity.

The role of driver fatigue in driving safety is a complex one. 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 economic inputs to production and transport. Consequently, the safety argument too often has been brushed aside in the face of a commercial logic that requires flexible and on-time transportation of goods and passengers, in many cases spanning the 24-hour cycle. The customer, the consumer and new modes of production require this – and in some respects, the working conditions of many drivers have become harsher and more demanding over the last 30 years. For these reasons, it is of particular importance to restate the safety case for controlling more effectively the factors that give rise to fatigue. In the European context, the dialogue between the social partners through which regulation is framed has to move beyond the balancing of economic factors and social conditions of work to fully encompass the critical role working time plays in road transport safety.

The most comprehensive research undertaken into the effects of driver fatigue has been carried out in the USA. A series of studies by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have pointed to the significance of sleepiness as a factor in accidents involving heavy vehicles. The NTSB came to the conclusion that 52 per cent of 107 single-vehicle accidents involving heavy trucks were fatigue-related; in nearly 18 per cent of the cases, the driver admitted to falling asleep. Summarising the US Department of Transportation's investigations into fatigue in the 1990s, the extent of fatigue-related fatal accidents is estimated to be around 30%.

In Europe, the evidence is less comprehensive, and often involves retrospective accounts of fatigue involvement which are likely to underestimate its impact. Research undertaken in some Member States indicates that driver fatigue is a significant factor in approximately 20% of commercial transport crashes. The results from various surveys carried out at different times, show over 50% of long-haul drivers have at some time fallen asleep at the wheel.

The most conspicuous observation concerning the causes of all fatigue-related accidents is that peak levels at night are often 10 times higher than daytime levels. French research into lorry driver working times and habits showed that risk levels vary with three key factors as regards the general problem of fatigue. There is an increased risk of accidents at night, an increased risk the greater the length of the working day, and also with irregular working hours.

Over the thirty-year period since EC Regulation 543/69, initiatives to regulate drivers’ hours have failed to implement the stated objective of reducing the impact of fatigue on driving safety. A whole generation of professional drivers, as well as the travelling public, have had neither the protection of regulations that control the most important factors contributing to fatigue, nor of regulations that have been consistently or effectively enforced. The current proposal to extend the Working Time Directive to road transport and the revision to the regulations on recording devices should have provided the opportunity to recreate a framework of regulations which can achieve two objectives:

-to better control those factors, associated with fatigue, which have been shown to influence road safety; and

-to provide a mechanism for the effective implementation and enforcement of these control measures.

The amended proposed extension of the Working Time Directive to road transport (COM (2000) 754) is welcome in that it addresses some issues.

- It extends coverage to all road transport workers (including, after three years, self-employed drivers), whereas Regulation 3820/85 restricts its scope to certain categories of driver.

- It stipulates a maximum weekly working limit of 60 hours with a maximum average of 48 hours over four months. While these proposals do address part of the safety issue, they are unlikely to be effective because where drivers respect and work to the limits of driving time in Regulation 3820/85 (which is in principle easier to enforce) they will in the great majority of cases, exceed the working time limits. Both working time and driving time need to be addressed in the same regulation.

- It restricts the duration of daily work for nightworkers to an average of 8 hours with an absolute maximum of 10 hours.

- Rest periods are more or less in line with Regulation 3820/85, although it does allow a working span of six hours before a break, which is somewhat high.

There is a fundamental contradiction in European policy for regulating time at work and driving in road transport. European Regulation EEC 3820/85 permits drivers to drive up to an average of 45 hours, and up to 56 hours one week in two. Driving up to this limit will almost inevitably mean having an average work span of 13 hours or more, during that week. The accident risk data demonstrate that after 11 hours of work span the risk of being involved in an accident doubles. Regulations based on extending the Working Time Directive to road transport workers are unlikely to have any effect to reduce the risk of excessive work spans, unless there is an effective means of control of both working and driving time in the same regulation. It is essential to reduce permissible driving time to an extent that will bring total working time within acceptable limits.

The proposed extension to the Working Time Directive is severely deficient in another area. It does not address enforcement beyond stipulating requirements to display information and keep records, and requiring Member States to determine a range of penalties and to take steps to enforce the regulations. The Commission should consider in much greater detail how this proposed Directive might be enforced; otherwise, its provisions (even if enacted) are likely to remain an aspiration.

While, internationally, there has been a lot of research on fatigue and safety, in Europe there has not been the concerted effort to provide a strong and coherent research basis for the development of policy. Thus while quite a lot is known about the physiology of sleep and waking (particularly over cycles of no more than 24 hours) and a certain amount about the risks associated with the various parameters of working time, knowledge of the actual working hours (and how they are distributed) is limited to certain countries.

There is a whole set of issues which requires focused research effort if there is to be a sustained and balanced programme of regulation that has a realistic chance of achieving specified safety objectives. These include:

-The economic and social determinants of working time. If measures to regulate working and driving time are to be fully effective, it is important that they are based on a comprehensive understanding of the economics of working in different sectors of commercial transport, and of sociological factors that may influence changed patterns of work.

-The social and economic costs of accidents associated with fatigue and working hours. It should be borne in mind that, because of their sheer mass, heavy commercial vehicles involved in multiple vehicle accidents cause very high rates of death and injury to other road users. It has been estimated that approximately 60% of the total costs of traffic accidents involving for-hire commercial cargo carrying trucks in the USA are borne by society rather than the truck operator. It is important therefore to establish a framework of data and evidence about these issues to enable a sound estimation of the benefits and costs of interventions to improve safety.

-The evaluation of a range of countermeasures. Regulation is one of a number of measures that can help to reduce the incidence of fatigue. It is important to evaluate both the implementation and effectiveness of these measures systematically.

-The establishment and monitoring of safety targets. Better quantification of the extent of the influence of fatigue on road safety should make it possible to establish realistic safety targets which can be achieved by the implementation of appropriate measures.

There are three main areas of policy which need to be addressed if there is to be a chance of overcoming the limitations of current policy and successfully reducing the influence of fatigue on safety. These are the overall framework of regulation and enforcement, the specific provisions for hours of work and rest, and the co-ordination of research that would support and develop this policy.

The framework for the regulation of working and driving time needs to be broadened to include a range of complementary measures which are specifically designed to improve the safety of road transport operations.

The framework of hours limitations should explicitly take account of the scientific evidence concerning fatigue and the risk of accident. In particular:

A co-ordinated programme of research is needed to address some of the gaps in the evidence. In particular it should seek to: