Sleepy drivers are dangerous, some claim they are as dangerous as drunk drivers. And when those drivers are behind the wheel of an 80-ton truck, the damage they can cause is staggering.

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently proposed new rules to restrict truck drivers to 12 hours of driving in a 24-hour period. This is a change from the current regulation which is based on an 18-hour cycle in which drivers need eight hours of rest for every 10 hours of driving. In effect, this lets them drive 16 hours a day and 70 hours in five days. Truck drivers usually sleep about five hours in a 24-hour period, not the eight continuous hours they need for optimal performance, studies have found.

Federal officials estimate 755 people die and 19,705 people are injured each year because of drowsy commercial drivers. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater says the new provisions would prevent 115 of those fatalities and 2, 995 injuries.

But both truckers and highway safety advocates are unhappy with the provisions, with drivers saying they're too restrictive and advocates warning that they create a loophole that allow truckers to stay on the road for too many hours.

On One Hand...

By changing the number of hours commercial drivers can spend behind the wheel, the administration is squeezing the life out of the trucking industry. By limiting driving time, these new requirements will force industry to hire at least 100,000 new drivers to keep up with the demand. The shift from an 18-hour cycle to a 24-hour cycle has the potential to move fatigue-related crashes from early morning hours to crashes during daytime rush hours.

On the Other Hand...

Fatigue is the number one problem in the trucking industry and tired truckers kill. The new regulations would extend the maximum time on the road from 10 to 12 hours. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, truck driver fatigue may be a contributing factor in up to 40 percent of all heavy truck crashes. Upping the amount of time drivers can spend behind the wheel is dangerous to both truckers and others on the road. In 1999 over 5,200 people were killed and 127,000 injured in crashes involving large trucks. Large trucks are also more likely to be involved in pileups. The answer is clear: truckers need more rest.

• In a study, driver alertness and performance were more consistently related to time-of-day than to time-on-task. Drowsiness episodes were eight times more likely between midnight and 6 a.m. than during other times.

• During their daily main sleep period, drivers slept for only about five hours, which was two hours less sleep than their "ideal" requirement of slightly over seven hours.

• Drivers' stated self-assessments of their levels of alertness do not correlate well with objective measures of performance. Drivers were not very good at assessing their own levels of alertness.

• Trucking accounts for more than 80 percent of transportation revenue in the U.S. economy.

U.S. Department of Transportation, American Trucking Association, Trucking Info, Parents Against Tired Truckers, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways