People who are driving as part of their work duties are an important road user category, in terms of road safety in the United States.
Firstly, workers themselves face increased risk of road traffic injury. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of work-related deaths in the U.S. Death, disability, or injury of a family wage earner due to road traffic injury, in addition to causing emotional pain and suffering, creates economic hardship for the injured worker and family members that may persist well beyond the event itself.
Additionally, many workers drive larger and heavier vehicles or multi-passenger vehicles. This creates a greater risk of a larger number of more serious injuries in an accident. Many U.S. workers must undergo specialized training in order to drive professionally, including bus drivers.
Contributing factors include fatigue and long work hours, delivery pressures, distractions from mobile phones and other devices, lack of training to operate the assigned vehicle, vehicle defects, use of prescription and non-prescription medications, medical conditions, and poor journey planning.
Employers are in a unique position to address these issues. They can use the employer-employee relationship as leverage to complement and enforce government policies that require safety belt use, prohibit impaired driving, improve training practices, and prohibit mobile-phone use and other forms of distracted driving. Safe-driving policies implemented in the workplace can promote safer driving away from work. In addition, employers, as purchasers of large fleets of vehicles, can spur improvements in vehicle safety, and encourage development of road safety capacity and legislation, thereby improving road safety for all.
Research examining motor vehicle crashes has focused on topics such as driver fatigue, medical conditions, distracted driving, biomechanics, vehicle engineering, collision warning systems, stability control, naturalistic driving data and the potential relation these factors have on the crashes. Various interventions from researchers studying driver behaviors have focused on vehicle monitoring devices, seat belt controls, enhanced training using immersive simulation, behavioral interventions, and obeying safe driving practices.
Crash data and data sources Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) are consistently the leading cause of work-related fatalities in the U.S. A total of 8,173 workers died in work-related MVCs on public highways from 2003 to 2008, representing 24% of all work-related fatalities for the period. The annual average fatality rate was 0.9 deaths per 100,000 workers. Workers employed in the trucking industry accounted for the greatest number (2,320) and highest rate of highway transportation deaths (19.6 per 100,000 workers). Other U.S. industries with high fatality rates due to work-related MVCs were logging (11.7 per 100,000 workers), wholesale distribution of petroleum products (8.6), waste management (8.5), support activities for mining (7.9), and taxi and limousine services (6.8). The majority of work-related MVC fatalities occurred among occupants of trucks (67% of deaths), especially tractor-trailers (34% of deaths). Nearly half of all fatalities were collisions between two or more vehicles (49%), and 19% were non-collision incidents, especially jack-knifed trucks and overturned vehicles. These statistics include only drivers and passengers in motor vehicles; U.S. data do include MVCs occurring off public highways, as well as fatalities of pedestrian workers, but these are not presented here. However, U.S. data on work-related fatalities do not include motor vehicle crashes while commuting to or from work, nor do crash data systems for the general population identify commuting status.
The source of the data discussed above is the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), a program managed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) with data provided by state agencies. CFOI is the most comprehensive surveillance system for work-related injury fatalities in the U.S. Multiple data sources are accessed to compile data, including death certificates, OSHA reports, workers’ compensation reports, police reports, and media accounts. Cases are deemed to be work-related upon confirmation by two independent data sources. CFOI combines strong methods for case ascertainment with detailed information on worker demographics and company characteristics. However, because CFOI must capture information on all kinds of occupational fatalities, it provides little detail on circumstances and risk factors specific to MVCs. A national surveillance system based on police crash reports provides more detailed information on circumstances and contributing factors for fatal MVCs. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) collects comprehensive data on the crash, the vehicle, the driver and other persons involved. However, FARS identifies work-related fatalities only through the death certificate, which often does not fully ascertain work-related fatalities. Nor does FARS categorize fatally injured workers by industry or occupation.
U.S. data on nonfatal work-related crashes are limited. Through a sample survey of employers, the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII), BLS generates annual estimates of nonfatal occupational injuries by variables such as industry, source of injury (e.g., a motor vehicle), body part(s) injured, age, and median lost work days. SOII provides little incident-level detail that can help to guide MVC prevention initiatives. Further, because SOII does not cover certain worker groups such as agricultural workers on farms with fewer than 11 employees and the self-employed, it undoubtedly underestimates the number of work-related MVCs and other events.
The operating environment for work-related road safety Workplace driving in the U.S. takes place in two distinct settings: the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) regulatory regime that covers large trucks and buses, and the unregulated operation of lighter-weight fleet or personal vehicles driven for work purposes. Regulations to promote safe operation of large trucks and buses have been part of U.S. Federal policy since the 1930s. Most recently, the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 assigned this regulatory responsibility to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in the U.S. Department of Transportation. Most of the large body of research on occupational road safety in the U.S. has focused on identifying and mitigating road risk for operators of large trucks and buses through behavioral, engineering, and management interventions.
In contrast, there is no corresponding body of regulations applicable to U.S. workers who operate motor vehicles other than large trucks or buses as part of their job duties: i.e., those who operate lighter vehicles that are employer-owned or leased, or those who drive personal vehicles for work purposes. It is true that at-work drivers are covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) “general duty clause”, which requires that an employer provide “employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees”.
Further, OSHA has issued regulations covering limited aspects of mobile equipment operation in construction, logging, marine terminals, and agriculture. However, OSHA has not put in place regulations for operation of motor vehicles on public roadways that would cover a wide range of vehicles, drivers, and work situations. In general, the OSHA policy response to occupational risks of light vehicle operation has been carried out through voluntary initiatives, guidance documents and ad hoc advisory committees.
Operation of lighter vehicles in the U.S. workplace is in effect governed by traffic laws, augmented by employer policies. In the U.S., laws related to mobile-phone use, safety belts, speed limits, age of licensure, and license renewal are the responsibility of individual states. Inconsistency from state to state can complicate road-safety management for organizations that operate in multiple states. Many employers, recognizing the substantial economic and human toll of MVCs on their organizations and their workers, have implemented organizational policies for road safety that exceed the requirements of traffic laws.
In response to safety advocacy, public opinion, and increasing threats of costly litigation, U.S. employers are moving to ban text messaging or use of mobile phones while driving on organizational business. The U.S. DOT, the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS), and the National Safety Council (NSC) offer a variety of resources to assist organizations in formulating and implementing policies on text messaging and mobile phone use: sample policies, reviews of liability issues, results of company surveys on mobile phone policies, and guidance on policy implementation and enforcement. FMCSA has recently issued rules banning both text-messaging and the use of handheld mobile phones by operators of commercial motor vehicles (large trucks and buses).
The American Trucking Associations has published a comprehensive textbook on risk factors, proximal causes, and prevention of large/heavy truck crashes. Topics include the size and nature of the truck collision problem; safety research methods; driver, vehicle, and roadway risk factors; vehicle-based technologies; safety management and operations; regulations, enforcement, and compliance; and “active safety.” “Active safety” encompasses the many fleet-based safety practices that are beyond legal compliance requirements but which can dramatically enhance safety performance. The book emphasizes implementation of these practices within individual fleets, but they could also be disseminated through government-industry collaborations and alternative compliance approaches.
In addition, OSHA recently implemented its first broad-based enforcement initiative related to motor vehicle safety on the topic of distracted driving. At the 2010 Distracted Driving Summit, former Secretary of Labor Hilda Solís announced that OSHA would focus on preventing distracted driving through education and partnerships, complemented by a new enforcement initiative. In her remarks, the Secretary stated: “When OSHA receives a credible complaint that an employer requires texting while driving or who organizes work so that texting is a practical necessity, we will investigate and where necessary issue citations and penalties to end this practice.”
Research and surveillance studies Based on the premise that targeted interventions are the most effective means of preventing occupational fatalities, researchers in the United States have published a number of studies aimed at documenting risk factors for occupational MVCs in various occupations and industries. Because fatality risk is consistently highest in the truck transportation sector, the vast majority of U.S. literature on occupational road safety addresses known and hypothesized risk factors for truck drivers, including driver fatigue and hours of service, medical conditions, and use of mobile devices.
In the U.S., a great deal of this research has been accomplished through partnerships between government agencies and government-supported research institutes housed at universities. Because U.S. regulation of occupational road safety is largely limited to the safety of large trucks and buses, these institutes have focused on providing the evidence base to support changes to the FMCSA safety regulations that cover these larger vehicles. Two research institutes that conduct much of the research on heavy-vehicle safety are the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI).