Has NJ Transit Stepped Up Sleep Apnea Testing Since the Hoboken Train Crash?

passenger train on tracks going through wooded area

WABC-TV recently featured a report updating the aftermath Hoboken train crash. Specifically, the news story focused on whether New Jersey Transit has been testing its train operators for sleep apnea more since the incident. This is due to the fact that following the Hoboken train wreck, the locomotive’s engineer was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea.

With that being the case, you would think that NJ Transit would screen its engineers for sleep apnea more often. However, according to the WABC-TV report, that is not the case. A WABC-TV discovered that since the Hoboken train accident, only 161 NJ Transit’s 429 engineers have been screened for sleep apnea, which means that 268, or roughly 60 percent, of their train operators have not been tested for the condition.

Why would NJ Transit not immediately test all their engineers for sleep apnea following the Hoboken crash? It is troubling that they are seemingly comfortable allowing engineers who could potentially have the same condition that caused a prior rail disaster to operate trains without undergoing testing. Could this result in another train accident disaster in the future?

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