This all sounds a bit grim…
Its not just night trunkers. Its those finishing in the small hours and those starting at 3,4,5am and those who don’t manage to get 7.5hrs sleep.
I can understand the issue of not getting enough sleep but night or day is probably bs considering that the only way of knowing the difference working in a submarine or below decks on a ship for example is by what the 24 hour clock says. 
Been working nights for a good few years now and I would never do less than 11hrs rest on principle.
I i i i ii bbbeeen working nnnnights and ssshifts ffor yyyears. There’s ■■■■ all wrrronggg with me!!!
:
I i i i ii bbbeeen working nnnnights and ssshifts ffor yyyears. There’s [zb] all wrrronggg with me!!!
lol
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I i i i ii bbbeeen working nnnnights and ssshifts ffor yyyears. There’s [zb] all wrrronggg with me!!!
:lol::lol::lol:
As usual they didn’t test regular night workers. They took a bunch of day workers out of their comfort zone and threw them onto night shifts, to me its bloody well obviously going to play havoc with the body if it isn’t used to it. Had they performed the same test on regular night workers then the results wouldn’t be worthy of the news.
It mentioned shift work which suggests changing sleep patterns regularly. I refuse to do that and maintain a reasonably set sleep pattern even on my days off. I find it difficult to nap on the bunk between 2230 and 0230 when i sometimes have to wait for the next ferry but i have no problem with sleeping at 0530 whether working or not. Its changing the sleep pattern that disrupts the body clock, not working nights long term. The body and brain may want to sleep at certain times but it gets used to shutting down at any time providing its not changing all the time
I used to work night trunking years ago and I loved it was so easy and I packed it in because I wanted to do Europe.
One of the problems I found I had was some days my head felt like I had a hangover and on a weekend I felt like a zombie most of the time…
To me if you do nights permanently you should be fine if you get enough sleep.
An other thing I used to get in around 6am and be up for around lunchtime so by the time I went to work I’d been up a fair few hours.
I’d work nights again if needed but prefer sleeping at night,that said I do like an early start
Conor:
Its not just night trunkers. Its those finishing in the small hours and those starting at 3,4,5am and those who don’t manage to get 7.5hrs sleep.
As the Working Time Directive states…it’s anyone working between midnight and 4am.
And the sleep you get during the day is never as good as the equiv sleep at night.
I hate night shift, less traffic admittedly but a lot worse for me and my health personally.
scanny77:
It mentioned shift work which suggests changing sleep patterns regularly.
I remember quite a few years ago hearing a report done in the States on night work and rotating shift paterns. That report concluded that it wasnt working at night, but rotating shift paterns that were the issue, and they found that extending the rotation period to aproximately 3 weeks gave the body time to adjust to the shift, and allow workers to be more productive.
Kinda fits with your experience 
Hiya i think if you work shifts its better to work two weeks nights two weeks days you
can get into a pattern…at a firm in Beverley i loaded from years ago changed the shift pattern
to what the company (French) ruled… Monday Tuesday…6 till 2…Wednesday Thursday 10 till 6 nights
Friday Saturday finish 6 am go back in at 2 till 10… Sunday Monday back to 6 till 2…thats a sad
rule in my book…i would think working like that would kill you…its not a driving job but
involves fork trucks and machinery .
John
I’d agree with the rotating shifts thing, up until November I was working odd runs and my start times were all over the place felt completely knackered/down all the time. Have had a regular run in the run up to Christmas and a different run from New Year, I’m almost enjoying driving now 
the fact that the hours suit my natural sleep pattern helps (I don’t do mornings 
)
Time for a eu directive i think that a maximum 4 on 4 off policy should be law with no opt out
Been doing night trunking for about 6 years now, but I only get about 4-5 hours sleep a day plus maybe a half hour while being tipped, I seem to get by ok though, except at the weekend when I can sleep the clock round. Just wonder how I’ll be in a few years time if this kind of stress is as bad for me as they say. Thing is I positively hate multidrop which is the only alternative dayshift and I get even more stressed with that.
rorymotorbiker:
Been doing night trunking for about 6 years now, but I only get about 4-5 hours sleep a day plus maybe a half hour while being tipped, I seem to get by ok though, except at the weekend when I can sleep the clock round. Just wonder how I’ll be in a few years time if this kind of stress is as bad for me as they say. Thing is I positively hate multidrop which is the only alternative dayshift and I get even more stressed with that.
With those sleep patterns It’s not the arguable effects that the scientists are shouting about that you need to worry about.It doesn’t take a scientist to know that you need to be more worried about if/when that catches up with you in which case rather than just feeling a bit knackered it could be that the last thing you see will be the back of someone’s trailer as you run into it at 56 mph that’s ‘if’ you even wake up before that point.
Nothing new …
Been doing nights almost 22 years