Campaign to raise awareness of how long professional drivers work

A campaign to highlight driving and rest-time regulations for professional drivers, was launched on Friday, emphasising that fatigue heightens the risk of traffic accidents and impacts working conditions, the labour relations department said. The campaign will run until November 22 and target professional drivers, business managers and the public through radio and social media. Between 2023 and 2025, the department carried out more than 1,300 inspections of professional drivers and identified violations involving driving hours, rest periods and breaks. The department said it issued information and compliance recommendations and referred criminal cases to police. The European study Driver Fatigue in European Road Transport report found that 31 per cent of bus and coach drivers and 26 per cent of lorry drivers surveyed had nearly been involved in an accident because of fatigue during the previous 12 months. The study also found that 5 per cent of bus and coach drivers and 3 per cent of lorry drivers said they had been involved in at least one fatigue-related accident over the same period. The department said it had designed measures to address the problem in cooperation with the police, the road transport department and the electromechanical services department. The awareness campaign forms part of efforts by the labour ministry to ensure professional drivers work under appropriate conditions and improve road safety for everyone using the roads. Videos promoting the campaign have already been published on the labour relations department’s social media pages.