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An investigation by The Oregonian shows that some TriMet bus drivers falling asleep on the job, possibly in connection with working as many as 22 hours in a 24-hour period. A national expert says the pattern could lead to a tragic accident.

(Jamie Francis/The Oregonian)

The noon train was on time. But on Oct. 13, 2011, the MAX approaching North Portland's Expo Station didn't stop. It was a runaway.

Like a fist to the jaw, Light Rail Vehicle 417 crashed into a barrier at the end of the Yellow Line, sending metal, bolts and glass flying. Three weeks later, after an employee posted an unapproved security video of the wreck on YouTube, TriMet told the public that it was caused by, simply, "operator error."

The error? Veteran light-rail operator Joel Maunu, who started his shift at 3:45 a.m., nodded off at the controls of the 100-ton train. "He thinks he fell asleep," a TriMet supervisor wrote in a report after interviewing Maunu, "and the crash woke him up."

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It's one of at least 21 cases during a 3 1/2-year period when TriMet riders, supervisors and other motorists have reported operators falling asleep on the job, according to an investigation by The Oregonian.

Reports of drowsy drivers, including three with multiple incidents, are just one sign that Oregon's largest transit agency is playing a game of chicken with fatigue. The newspaper's eight-month examination found that the budget-battered agency allows operators to manipulate work rules to log as many as 22 hours in a 24-hour period, filling open runs and fattening paychecks but crashing vehicles and terrifying riders along the way.

In 2009, no driver hit that mark. Now at least eight are in the century club, including one who earned $116,624 during fiscal year 2012, payroll records show. The average full-time driver, meanwhile, earns $65,615, counting $15,000 overtime.

During the fiscal year that ended June 30, the top earner logged 3,666 hours, which would have kept him working an average of 14.1 hours every weekday of the year without vacation.

Fung, who retired in October, and other TriMet workers shared stories of marathon drivers gulping down energy drinks to stay awake and sleeping on agency-supplied cots or in their cars rather than heading home between shifts.

For many operators, TriMet's long-running budget crisis -- the agency cut service and increased fares because of a $12 million budget shortfall last year -- has actually proven to be a financial blessing.

A long hiring freeze created a shortage of drivers at a transit agency that also struggles with a daily absenteeism rate of more than 10 percent. In effect, TriMet has chosen to pay out overtime rather than pay new employees what are among the most generous health care and retirement benefits in the transit industry.

Incident reports

July 22, 2009:

Line 9 "driver falling asleep at wheel, swerving to right and brushed curb ... went over yellow line into oncoming traffic." The driver "jerked" awake and told riders "sorry about that." The driver, Lahcen Qouchbane, was fired in 2011 after he was caught reading a Kindle while driving a bus through morning traffic.

June 4, 2010:

A Line 75 rider reports his bus driver "falls asleep at the wheel almost every day. I was late today because this driver keeps falling asleep!" Rather than fight the accusation, the veteran driver decided to retire.

Jan. 28, 2012:

A pregnant woman riding a Line 35 watched the driver in a mirror as he kept nodding off as he drove a bus full of riders. "I even kept making noise" to wake him up, she reported.

March 29, 2012:

A Line 48 rider in Hillsboro called to report that she had to rouse a driver who was sleeping through a green light at Southwest 48th Avenue and Cornell Road.

Aug. 10, 2012:

After a bus plowed into a Beaverton railroad crossing on Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, jamming up morning traffic for hours, a TriMet investigator told police the driver likely fell asleep. The driver said he choked on "a piece of hair," causing him to briefly pass out.

-- Joseph Rose

When station agents can't fill scheduling holes, they're forced to cancel buses without warning, leaving frustrated commuters waiting at stops. On July 23, for example, TriMet started the day by canceling 10 buses because it didn't have enough operators to step in for those who called in sick.

If you've got the seniority and the stamina, there's almost always an overtime shift available.

During the reporting of this story, TriMet officials slowly shifted their attitudes about the driving schedules.

In August, they said there were no new plans to address fatigue on the agency's routes, insisting that problems with drowsiness behind the wheel were confined to a small group of operators. At the end of November, however, they said new limits on work hours for bus drivers would be a priority in upcoming contract negotiations with the union.

"The bottom line," said Shelly Lomax, executive director of operations, "is that this topic is important to us."

Sleeping through a light



As it would any other weekday morning, the No. 57 rumbled between the German American School and Kmart on Beaverton's Southwest Murray Road on July 13, 2010.

About 11 a.m., the light at Tualatin Valley Highway turned red. The bus stopped, but only briefly. People on board felt the 16-ton vehicle roll forward, picking up velocity as it headed into the highway's metal maelstrom of crisscross traffic. It nearly collided with a car.

The 57's driver had nodded off at the light, a rider reported 20 minutes later. Apparently feeling the bus moving, the driver jerked awake, put it into reverse and backed up. "Caller said that he feared for his life all the way," a TriMet dispatcher wrote in the report.

At any given moment, the average TriMet operator of a 65-passenger bus has more lives in his or her hands than a police officer or firefighter. All it takes to make fatigue a major issue for the agency is one tragedy caused by a bus driver who can't keep his eyes open, said Charles A. Czeisler, a Boston-based professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School.

"More than most activities," Czeisler said, "driving is one of the things that unmasks sleepiness. Every year, one in five serious crashes in the U.S. involves drowsy driving."

TriMet rider complaints

Between June 2009 and June 2012, TriMet received several complaints from riders and motorists about bus drivers nodding off behind the wheel. Oregon's largest transit agency says it wants to do more to address driver fatigue but is bound by its union contract.

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MAX ACCIDENT:

No one was injured in an accident involving a MAX train on Oct. 13, 2011. The accident was caused by a driver who had fallen asleep.

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Since June 2009, TriMet riders and other motorists have reported what appeared to be sleepy bus drivers swerving into oncoming traffic, hitting curbs, just missing parked cars and snoozing through lights after they've turned from red to green.

Still, it's rare that an operator admits to dozing off, even after complaints about repeated incidents. Instead, they blame everything from bone-picking passengers to simply slumping forward during neck stretches. In a 2010 case, a veteran Line 75 driver decided to retire rather than fight a report that he fell asleep at the wheel "almost every day."

But Norma Stevens knows what she saw on her morning commute Dec. 23, 2011: The woman driving her Line 8 bus pulled over at a stop on Portland's Northeast 15th Avenue, let a rider off and took a nap.

"She had been yawning and stretching a lot," Stevens, a 27-year-old home-care provider, said. "I was the last person on the bus. I don't think she realized I was still back there."

As the engine idled on the two-lane road near the Killingsworth Street signal, Stevens approached the front of the bus. Elbows on the steering wheel, the driver slept with head in hands, Stevens said. A motorist snaking around from behind braked and threw a small rock at the bus, stirring the driver.

TriMet records show that a cab driver stuck behind the bus for "two to three light signals" also called to report that the No. 8's operator had dozed off.

Stevens said the operator "looked startled" when she looked in her mirror and realized a rider was still on the bus. "I was on my way to work," she said. "But I just wanted to get off."

The driver wasn't disciplined. It's unclear why. When confronted with the allegations and subjected to the obligatory fit-for-duty checks, drivers often tell supervisors that they're merely closing their eyes to rest them at stops and signals.

"We do not have a policy against closing one's eyes," Lomax said.

Part of the challenge, she said, is that driver interviews are often conducted hours after the alleged incident because witnesses waited too long to call TriMet.

Absent a confession or indisputable evidence, Lomax said she must assume customers simply "perceive an operator as sleepy."

Federal rules don't apply



Federal regulations strictly limit the hours a railroad engineer, truck driver, charter bus operator or airline pilot can work. Among other things, the rules require anywhere from eight to 10 hours minimum off between shifts. But the federal rules don't apply to public transit workers.

Instead, the Federal Transit Authority requires ODOT to impose scheduling guidelines for the state's light-rail operators only.

The rules are easy enough. MAX operators are limited to 17 hours in a rolling 24-hour period and must take at least seven hours off between shifts. They can't work more than 70 hours over seven days. And they must take at least one day off after 13 consecutive days of work.

But in August 2011, ODOT sent TriMet a scathing letter, accusing the agency of skirting the rules over a period of several years. Rather than requiring a minimum seven-hour break between shifts, for example, the agency allowed MAX operators to take that number of hours off anytime, anyhow during a 24-hour calendar day, regulators said.

Conceivably, the letter said, rail operators could "work for 34 consecutive hours" if they wished. An employee could start work on a Monday at 7 a.m. and work until midnight. Then, on Tuesday, start a second shift at 12:01 a.m. and work until 5 p.m.

The state told TriMet that it had 10 days to shape up or face steep civil penalties. Without giving ODOT a reason for the lapses, the agency responded that it would quickly bring the rail scheduling into compliance.

John Johnson, ODOT's rail safety manager, said investigators found no evidence of 34-hour shifts, but there were plenty of violations.

"We took a stance and took it hard," Johnson said. "these rules were created specifically to reduce fatigue."

Some drivers stretching shifts





Of course, when it comes to bus drivers, Oregon lets transit agencies set their own work rules, usually through collective-bargaining agreements with unions.

TriMet bus drivers are limited to 70 hours during a seven-day period. But years ago, TriMet and ATU worked out a plan that allows bus drivers to get away with stretching their daily time on the road to startling limits. In fact, it follows the same flexible precepts that set off alarms among rail regulators in Salem in 2011.

Top-earning TriMet drivers

(Fiscal year 2012, which ended June 30)

Dragutin Trotic $116,624 ($64,408 in overtime)

Allan Raaberg $107,770 ($57,030 in overtime)

Stephen Eckles $105,938 ($51,785 in overtime)

Robert Fuller $101,267 ($51,785 in overtime)

Roberto Silva $100,777 ($52,336 in overtime)

Source: TriMet

TriMet bus drivers must take only seven consecutive hours off anytime during a 24-hour service day -- not between shifts. And an examination of TriMet payroll records from March 1 through Dec. 21, 2012, provided myriad examples of how drivers get creative with their schedules in order to grab overtime shifts.

After the first 8 hours of work during a service day, operators earn time and a half. If they drive on holidays, they make their regular pay plus time and a half.

Two years running, veteran driver Dragutin Trotic, a 60-year-old Croatian immigrant, is the reigning OT champ. He earned $116,624 during the last fiscal year, often on little more than a quick snooze between shifts.

On Sept. 20, for instance, he drove for more than nine hours straight, calling it a day at 1:57 a.m. on Sept. 21. But his next work day started a little more than two hours later. At 4:15 a.m., he clocked in for a split shift that ended at 5:27 p.m., records show.

Also, Trotic frequently works 13 days straight, the most allowed by TriMet before he's required to take a day off. "I'm built to handle it," Trotic said of his challenging schedule. "Some drivers aren't. But I am."

Eight drivers made more than $100,000 in 2011, the last full calendar year that payroll records are available. Of those, TriMet said only four have been involved in crashes in recent months.

True. But a review of crash records between September 2011 and Dec. 20, 2012, showed the top-earning drivers have had multiple incidents ranging from clipped mirrors and steering into parked vehicles, including a UPS truck, to killing a dog that ran into the road. In October 2011, Trotic hit a parked car. A crash involving another operator last July resulted in two people being rushed to the hospital by ambulance, but a police report blamed that one on an SUV driver who ran a red light.

Of the 952 bus and MAX collisions recorded by TriMet during that period, the agency redacted the operators' names in 201 -- including many involving serious injuries -- due to ongoing discipline, investigations or claims of other personnel exemptions. The redactions made it impossible to match up accident-prone drivers with high overtime earners.

Still, regardless of the hour, station agents are expected to watch for drivers who appear sleepy before they take a bus, Lomax said. If they choose, operators are also allowed to pass up work without at least nine hours off between shifts, she said.

"We also count on our employees to use good judgment," Lomax said.

It's hard to find a U.S. transit agency that permits its bus drivers and station agents to be so adventurous with scheduling.

In Seattle, for example, King County Metro requires eight hours off between shifts, with no drivers allowed to work two consecutive eight-hour runs. Meanwhile, Los Angeles Metro, guided by state regulations, requires at least eight hours off between shifts and insists that drivers report schedules from second jobs so that those hours can be factored into "on-duty time."

TriMet, on the other hand, appears to be setting itself up for catastrophe, Harvard's Czeisler said. "The notion that drivers getting three hours of sleep between shifts are still safe is outrageous," he said. "It's categorically unsafe."

Going on autopilot





Czeisler's decades-long research into drowsy driving shows that sleep-deprived drivers take three times as long to react to traffic hazards and often are more impaired than drunk drivers.

Among other examples, he pointed to a charter bus crash in New York in March 2011 that killed 15 people and injured 18 others returning from a trip to a Connecticut casino. National Transportation Safety Board investigators found that the driver slept only for short periods of three hours or less in the three days before the crash.

Steve Fung, a former TriMet driver, said the agency's reliance on split shifts is another problem, leading to extreme fatigue. He said that helped speed his decision to retire. "You're leaving the house at 5 in the morning and not putting the key back in the door until 8 p.m."

As part of a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, one in 24 U.S. adults admitted to recently falling asleep while driving. The study found that drivers were more likely to nod off if they slept six hours or less a night.

When fatigued, Czeisler said, professional drivers are actually more likely than average commuters to switch to autopilot and do something to cause a crash. It may not be happening on every route or every day, but if a bus driver is taking only three hours off between shifts, "I can't see how they're getting three hours of sleep," Czeisler said, "or any real sleep. You can bet that transit operators working these extreme hours are often ferrying passengers with part of their brain actually asleep."

Some agencies tape drivers





TriMet is far from the only transit agency tossing and turning with concerns about fatigue.

Last month, a New Jersey transit driver nodded off and lost control of a bus with 50 people aboard, swerving into the guardrail and nearly falling off a highway overpass. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Metro just announced an extensive study of employee sleep and work habits.

D.C. Metro, which fixes cameras on bus operators, caught 67 of them falling asleep behind the wheel during a 19-month period, when the agency received only a handful of complaints from riders about drowsy driving.

In Portland, ATU 757 has long taken an iron-willed stance against aiming cameras at TriMet operators. With the ongoing struggle over health care and retirement benefits expected to dominate upcoming negotiations, it's hard to know how far TriMet will get with new curbs on drivers' hours.

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Bruce Hansen, the union's president, said he is "open to a discussion." But in 2011, spooked by their run-in with ODOT over light-rail violations, TriMet sent a letter to union leaders, asking them to talk about possible changes. Without a mandate from the state or federal government, or contract concessions, the ATU replied that it preferred to stick with "the status quo."

"These drivers don't want to see buses canceled," Hansen said. "They care about the person who is expecting their bus to show up on schedule. That's why they work the hours they do."

TriMet has ended the hiring freeze and is training new bus drivers again. But most operators still make overtime every day.

Joel Maunu, the MAX operator who crashed a train at the end of the Yellow Line, made $78,036 in 2011. Of that, $25,240 was from working extra hours.

Dramatic video of his October 2011 wreck went viral on the Internet.

Even at 12 mph, the collision was fierce enough to snap the super-size restraining bolts holding a bumping barrier in place and hammer the structure against a concrete walkway. Two people on board walked away without injuries. But with $60,000 in damage, the train was out of service for weeks.

Despite first telling the investigating supervisor that he fell asleep at the controls, Maunu changed his story. Approaching the station, "I looked forward then down at the speedometer," he wrote in his own report. "I do not know what happened then."

Calling it a "preventable accident," TriMet suspended Maunu for 15 days without pay.

Since then, however, Maunu has been diagnosed with sleep apnea, a disorder that made him chronically fatigued, he told The Oregonian.

"Yeah, I probably fell asleep for a few seconds," Maunu said on Friday. "Of course, the way TriMet has operators working didn't help. We're sitting a lot and we don't get a lot of breaks like we used to – where we can walk around and wake up."

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Mark Friesen of The Oregonian contributed to this report.