Scuttling of Sleep Apnea Screening Proposal Draws Heated Reactions
The Trump administration's move to halt progress on a proposal that would have required sleep apnea screening for truck drivers and train engineers was met with largely negative reactions in press reports from around the country and the world.
News reports on the Trump adminstration's move to halt a sleep apnea rule for truck drivers were mostly negative in their coverage. Photo: Volvo Group
3 min to read
News reports on the Trump adminstration's move to halt a sleep apnea rule for truck drivers were mostly negative in their coverage. Photo: Volvo Group
The Trump administration's decision to halt progress on a sleep apnea screening and alleviation rule for truck drivers earlier this month sent shock waves through the trucking industry and the country at large. Reaction to the decision was decidedly mixed, with numerous commenters decrying the move as a serious safety issue with potentially disastrous consequences for the motoring public. Others zeroed in on the political implications of the Trump administration’s move, while still others felt the regulation was a burdensome overreach that would have hurt productivity.
Ad Loading...
The bulk of news and opinion pieces presented the news as negative or controversial in nature, with many of the articles focusing on the public safety aspect of the rule and questioning whether fleets and individuals could be counted on to take adequate steps on their own to keep tired drivers off the road.
Ad Loading...
Here are some of the more interesting and controversial takeaways from around the country (and globe):
One America News Network: “The Former President’s Needless Rules”
The conservative news outlet One America News posted video of truck drivers celebrating the decision to halt progress on a sleep apnea rule and outlining why they feel it is not needed.
The blog Reason.com, which supports “free minds and free markets,” suggested the onslaught of negative press in the wake of the decision was the “regulatory deep state, fighting tooth and nail to preserve and expand its power in the face of Trump's deregulatory push.”
The Hill reports on Congress and federal-level regulatory issues and presented both sides of the issues fairly in its reporting on move to halt progress on a sleep apnea rule.
Fox News and its associated news outlets are usually reliably in President’s Trump’s corner and adamantly anti-regulation and red tape. This eyebrow-raising headline aside, Fox Business was notably neutral in its assessment of the sleep apnea decision and mainly focused on the train engineer aspect of the rule.
News on the Trump Administration’s decision reached overseas to the U.K., where one of its leading newspapers say it could “put millions of lives at risk.”
Hoboken, New Jersey, was the scene of a horrific commuter train crash just last year. Because of that, a slew of editorials from the Garden State were staunchly opposed to the dropping of the proposed sleep apnea rule.
A letter to the editor in New Jersey’s Ashbury Park Press echoed a similar theme, suggesting that President Trump’s decision was based solely on undoing any position taken by the Obama administration.
The New York Daily News, which has a long-running contentious relationship with President Trump, said the current administration is “asleep at the switch” when it comes to public safety.
A journalist for this small Arkansas newspaper saw the Trump administration’s sleep apnea move in the context of the larger debate between regulations and overreach.
The Department of Labor plans to expand Pell Grant eligibility to some shorter workforce training programs, a move the American Trucking Associations said will help strengthen commercial driver training schools and diesel technician training programs.
For an industry that has watched this issue go back and forth for years, the independent contractor proposal marks the latest swing in the regulatory pendulum.
America’s Service Line adopted Link’s SmartValve and ROI Cabmate systems to address whole-body vibration, repetitive strain, and driver turnover. The trucking fleet is already seeing measurable results.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued more than 550 notices of proposed removal to commercial driver training providers following a five-day nationwide enforcement sweep. Investigators cited unqualified instructors, improper training vehicles, and failure to meet federal and state requirements.
Illinois is the latest state targeted and threatened with the loss of highway funding by the U.S. Department of Transportation in its review of states' non-domiciled CDL issuance procedures. The state is pushing back.
After a legal pause last fall, FMCSA has finalized its rule limiting non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses. The agency says the change closes a safety gap, and its revised economic analysis suggests workforce effects will be more gradual than first thought.
