Houston Chronicle

Experts see big risks if sleep tests for train engineers aren’t carried out

- By Michael Balsamo and Michael R. Sisak

U.S. officials are abandoning plans to require sleep apnea screening for truck drivers and train engineers, a decision that safety experts say puts millions of lives at risk.

The Federal Railroad Administra­tion and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administra­tion said late last week that they are no longer pursuing the regulation that would require testing for the fatigueind­ucing disorder that’s been blamed for deadly rail crashes in New York City and New Jersey and several highway crashes.

The agencies argue that it should be up to railroads and trucking companies to decide whether to test employees. One railroad that does test, Metro-North in the New York City suburbs, found that 11.6 percent of its engineers have sleep apnea.

The decision to kill the sleep apnea regulation is the latest step in President Donald Trump’s campaign to drasticall­y slash federal regulation­s. The Trump administra­tion has withdrawn or delayed hundreds of proposed regulation­s since he took office in January — moves the Republican president has said will help bolster economic growth.

Late last year, the FRA issued a safety advisory that was meant as a stopgap measure urging railroads to begin sleep apnea testing while the rules made their way through the regulatory process. Without a regulation mandating testing, which would have needed approval from Congress, regulators couldn’t cite trucking companies or railroads if a truck or train crashed because the operator fell asleep at the helm.

Sleep apnea is especially troubling for the transporta­tion industry because sufferers are repeatedly awakened and robbed of rest as their airway closes and their breathing stops, leading to dangerous daytime drowsiness. Treatments include wearing a pressurize­d breathing mask, oral appliances or nasal strips to force the airway open while sleeping. Some severe cases require surgery.

“It’s very hard to argue that people aren’t being put at risk,” said Sarah Feinberg, the former administra­tor of the FRA, who had issued the safety advisory in December. “We cannot have someone who is in that condition operating either a train going 70 mph or operating a multiton truck traveling down the interstate. It’s just not an appropriat­e level of risk to be exposing passengers and the traveling public to.”

The National Transporta­tion Safety Board said it was disappoint­ed the agencies decided to scrap the “much-needed rulemaking.”

 ?? Robert Stolarik / Associated Press file ?? William Rockefelle­r is moved from the area in the Bronx where the commuter train he was operating derailed in 2013, killing four. The National Transporta­tion Safety Board said he had “severe obstructiv­e sleep apnea.”
Robert Stolarik / Associated Press file William Rockefelle­r is moved from the area in the Bronx where the commuter train he was operating derailed in 2013, killing four. The National Transporta­tion Safety Board said he had “severe obstructiv­e sleep apnea.”

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