Is Minnesota Fatigue Checklist Unfairly Stopping Truck Drivers?
There was a federal lawsuit filed this past week that will look at the issue of truck driver safety. Basically, Capt. Ken Urquhart, a District Commander with the Minnesota State Patrol in the Commercial Enforcement Division created a Fatigued Driving Evaluation Checklist which was to be used by troopers in deciding if a driver should be taken of the road. Drivers have united and decided to fight the effort. Suit was filed against the state by two drivers who are taking the position that the checklist is arbitrary. They have used the tact of pointing out that the list includes question about appearance and cab use that are either silly or not relevant to the question of how tired the driver is. Officer Urquhart was interviewed some time ago and described the questioning as “It’s similar to the drug recognition examiner, that once you complete that training, there’s the message they tell you is that you’ll have a better working knowledge of drug abuse than most MDs do, because you’re foc
