Assessment of perceived injury risks and priorities among truck drivers and trucking companies in Washington State

Problem

The trucking industry experiences one of the highest work-related injury rates. Little work has been conducted previously in the United States to assess the hazards, needs, and injury prevention priorities in trucking. Method: Two separate industry-wide surveys of 359 trucking companies and 397 commercial truck drivers were conducted in Washington State. Results: Trucking companies and drivers both ranked musculoskeletal and slip, trip, fall injuries as the top two priorities. Controlling heavy lifting, using appropriate equipment, and addressing slippery surfaces were frequently listed as solutions. There appears to be a gap in safety climate perception between workers and employers. However, driver and company priorities agreed with industry workers' compensation claims. There is room for safety program management improvement in the industry. The study findings detail opportunities for prioritizing and reducing injuries. Impact on Industry: This information can be used to focus and design interventions for the prevention of work-related injuries while improving industry competitiveness.     

Improving traffic safety: Conceptual considerations for successful action

Introduction

In the early stages of motorization, it did not take rigorous scientific research to achieve major improvements in traffic safety. Instead, early traffic-safety countermeasures were often based exclusively on common sense. Since then, scientific research has gradually increased in importance as the basis for developing successful interventions. This shift was not made by choice but mostly by necessity: Many of the “easy” problems have already been addressed, and the remaining problems are generally too complex for an approach based solely on common sense. Fortunately, our understanding of the complexities involved in traffic safety has recently made major gains, and common sense can now be supplemented, to some degree, by valid technical analysis.

Approach

This article discusses major conceptual issues that should be considered in guiding the future development of effective, science-based traffic-safety countermeasures.

Impact on industry

After briefly discussing the conceptual issues, the article offers a list of implications for action.     

Injury severity analysis of accidents involving young male drivers in Great Britain

Introduction

Young male drivers are over-represented in traffic accidents; they were involved in 14% of fatal accidents from 1991 to 2003 while holding only 8% of all drivers licenses in the UK. In this study, a subset of the UK national road accident data from 1991 to 2003 has been analyzed. The primary aim is to determine how to best use monetary and progressive resources to understand how road safety measures will reduce the severity of accidents involving young male drivers in both London and Great Britain.

Method

Ordered probit models were used to identify specific accident characteristics that increase the likelihood of one of three categorical outcomes of accident severity: slight, serious, or fatal.

Results

Characteristics found to lead to a higher likelihood of serious and fatal injuries are generally similar across Great Britain and London but are different from those predicted to lead to a higher likelihood of slight injuries. Those characteristics predicted to lead to serious and fatal injuries include driving in darkness, between Friday and Sunday, on roads with a speed limit of 60 mph, on single carriageways, overtaking, skidding, hitting an object off the carriageway, and when passing the site of a previous accident. Characteristics predicted to lead to slight injuries include driving in daylight, between Monday and Thursday, on roads with a speed limit of 30 mph or less, at a roundabout, waiting to move, and when an animal is on the carriageway.

Impact on Industry

These results aid the selection of policy options that are most likely to reduce the severity of accidents involving young male drivers.     

Blood on the coal: The effect of organizational size and differentiation on coal mine accidents

Introduction

Each year, there are at least 100,000,000 occupational accidents and 100,000 occupational deaths in the world. In the United States, one of the safest countries in the world in which to work, there were more than 5,400 workplace fatalities and 5.9 million workplace injuries in 2007. The cost to American industry and taxpayers is estimated to be at least $170 billion per year. Further, as illustrated by accidents such as Three Mile Island and Bhopal, industrial accidents potentially impact a much wider sphere than that of the injured worker and his or her employer. As the repercussions of organizational accidents reverberate through organizations and are felt from human resources to accounting, firms are beginning to incorporate messages of safety in their missions and strategies. As firms organize to achieve safer work environments, they are faced with decisions on how to structure their activities in terms of, among other things, size and differentiation.

Method

This paper explores the impact on accident rates of size and differentiation at the corporate and mine levels of mining companies in an effort to create a framework for thinking about organizational accidents from a structural perspective.

Results

The results suggest that larger mines are safer than smaller mines, and that mines with less task diversity are safer than mines with greater task diversity. The results also suggest that at the corporate level, task diversity decreases mine accidents. These results may help mining executives and engineers structure their corporate activities and individual mines more effectively to help reduce accidents.     

Pediatrician attitudes, knowledge, and practice behavior regarding teen driving safety

Problem

Each year about 4,000 teens ages 16-19 die on U.S. roads. Injury prevention counseling is recommended as a valuable and cost-effective part of routine health supervision. This study describes pediatrician knowledge and practice regarding teen driving safety.

Methods

A 31-item self-administered survey was mailed to pediatricians.

Results

160 of 392 pediatricians (41%) completed the survey. During a health supervision visit 93% of pediatricians reported discussing seat belt use, 89% impaired driving, 54% teen licensing laws, and 16% parent teen contract. Half reported having a teen in their practice killed in a crash.

Conclusions

A majority surveyed report discussing and counseling teens on first wave teen driver safety issues (seat belts, alcohol use), but most do not discuss graduated driver licensing laws or related issues. Impact on Industry: Broadly adopted, this inexpensive counseling approach, could lead to reductions in teen motorvehicle crash injuries.     

Injury severity related to overturn characteristics of tractors

Introduction

Early studies of injuries associated with overturns indicate that more fatalities occurred when a tractor overturned beyond 90° (continuous roll) relative to the impact plane. Recently, the principle of preventing continuous rolls has re-emerged for the protection of riding lawnmower operators.

Method

Related to tractors, a population-based study was conducted that compared the severity of fatal and nonfatal injuries between a 90° and continuous roll for tractors equipped with rollover protective structures (ROPS) and not equipped with a ROPS (non- ROPS). In 2002, the Kentucky Farm Tractor Overturn Survey was administered to an 8% random sample (6,063) of Kentucky farm operators. The farmers responded to questions that differentiated between the types of overturns and operator injury outcomes for ROPS-equipped and non-ROPS tractors during overturn events. Overturn characteristics were collected that included 90° to the side, beyond 90° to the side, and to the rear for both ROPS-equipped and non-ROPS tractors.

Results

Of the 541 overturns reported in this study, 535 (99%) of the respondents reported the most recent overturn characteristics of the tractor: 92 (17%) were ROPS-equipped and 443 (83%) were non-ROPS. For side overturns, 67% of the rolls occurred with ROPS-equipped tractors, and 54% occurred with non-ROPS tractors. The percentages of deaths related to rolls to the side for ROPS-equipped and non-ROPS tractors were, respectively, 1.6% and 3.7%. There was one (2%) deaths related to 90° rolls for ROPS-equipped tractors, whereas for continuous rolls there were 6.4% fatalities related to side overturns, 13% resulted in non-fatal injuries with an average of 1 day of hospitalization for ROPS-equipped tractors, and 39% resulted in non-fatal injuries with an average of 18 days of hospitalization for non-ROPS tractors. The results from this study indicated that a ROPS was more effective at stopping an overturn at 90° than no ROPS, with an associated reduction in the severity of injury in the event of a tractor overturn.     

Dissociation between driving performance and drivers' subjective estimates of performance and workload in dual-task conditions

Introduction

The current study measured how concurrent driving and in-vehicle activities of different levels of engagement varied in terms of performance and subjective estimates of demand and performance.

Method

In this test track study, 41 younger and older drivers completed a series of cognitive tasks while driving an instrumented vehicle. One task involved an engaging guessing game where drivers tried to guess the identity of an object. The other task involved a simple mental arithmetic task.

Results

We observed some dissociation between drivers' performance and their subjective reports. For instance, drivers tended to estimate their performance as better for the more engaging guessing task than the arithmetic task, though their performance was actually worse. At the same time, subjective estimates of workload across the two tasks did not vary in the dual-task condition even though they did in the single-task baseline conditions, suggesting that drivers failed to account for the added demands in dual-task situations.

Conclusions

We discuss the implications of these findings for driver safety.

Impact on Industry

Crashes due to distraction can carry tremendous costs for employers, in terms of injury, disability, and loss of potentially productive work years, whether these crashes occur on or off the job.     

Results from a national survey of Crown prosecutors and defense counsel on impaired driving in Canada: A “System Improvements” perspective

Introduction

This article summarizes the main findings from a study designed to examine the legal process in Canada as it applies to alcohol-impaired driving from the point of view of Crown prosecutors and defense counsel, and to identify evidentiary or procedural factors that may impact the legal process, the rights of the accused, and interactions of all parts in the legal process.

Method

The data in this study were collected by means of a survey that was mailed out to the population of Crown prosecutors and defense counsel in Canada. In total, 765 prosecutors and 270 defense lawyers or an estimated 33% of all Canadian prosecutors and 15% of defense lawyers completed and returned the questionnaire. The "systems improvement" paradigm was used to interpret the findings and draw conclusions. Such an approach acknowledges the importance of the context in which countermeasures are implemented and delivered and the structures or entities used to deliver countermeasures to a designated target group.

Results

Results on type of charges and breath alcohol concentration, caseload, case outcomes, case preparation time, conviction rate at trial and overall conviction rate, reasons for acquittals and time to resolve cases are described.

Discussion

The findings from this national survey suggest that there are important challenges within the criminal justice system that impede the effective and efficient processing of impaired driving cases. Some of these challenges occur as a function of practices and policies, while others occur as a function of legislation.

Impact on industry

This study illustrates that a "system improvements" approach that acknowledges the importance of all elements of the criminal justice system and the interaction between those elements, can be beneficial in overcoming the alcohol-impaired driving problem.     

Attitudes toward a primary seat belt law among adults in a rural state with a secondary seat belt law

Problem

Enforced primary seatbelt laws can reduce morbidity and mortality associated with motor-vehicle crashes. Constituent support is an important factor associated with legislator voting behavior toward injury prevention laws. Little is known about attitudes toward a primary seat belt law among adults in rural states without a primary seat belt law.

Methods

Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, a telephone survey of a representative sample of adults in Montana, were used to assess attitudes toward a primary seat belt law.

Results

Sixty-one percent of respondents supported a primary seat belt law. Using multiple logistic regression analyses, women (AOR 1.87; 95% CI 1.49-2.36), persons aged 65 years and older (1.45; 1.06-1.96), American Indians (2.71; 1.55-4.75), those with health insurance (1.51; 1.07-2.14), and those who reported always wearing their seat belt (4.05; 3.14-5.21) were more likely to support a primary seat belt law than respondents without these characteristics.

Conclusions

The majority of adults in a rural state support a primary seat belt law.