1. Introduction

“Roadway crashes were the leading contributor to occupational injury fatalities in 2000.”

In the United States, roadway crashes^* are the leading cause of death from unintentional injury in the general population. In 2000, roadway crashes killed 36,249 vehicle drivers and passengers and injured nearly 3.1 million [NHTSA 2001a]. Roadway crashes were also the leading contributor to occupational injury fatalities, accounting for 1,347 civilian worker deaths (23.5%) in 2000.

In 2000, the total cost of motor vehicle crashes, occupational and nonoccupational, was estimated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to be $230.6 billion [NHTSA 2002a]. This figure represents a substantial increase over the NHTSA estimate of $150.5 billion published in 1996 [NHTSA 1996]. Costs in 2000 related to lost wages and benefits for crash victims totaled $61 billion, or 26% of the total. Workplace costs associated with disruptions because of the loss or absence of an employee accounted for an additional $4.6 billion, or 2% of total costs [NHTSA 2002a]. In addition to direct workplace costs, employers and injured workers and their families bear some of the costs associated with medical care, legal services, administration of insurance claims, travel delays, and repair or replacement of damaged vehicles.

The extent to which workers drive or ride in motor vehicles as part of their job duties is largely unknown, but it can be assumed that exposures are greater in some occupations and industries. Work situations involving motor vehicle operation range from those that are heavily regulated to those in which the employer may have limited influence. For certain occupations—truck drivers, taxi drivers, and bus drivers, for example—motor vehicle operation is the primary job duty. Truck and passenger vehicles in the motor carrier industry are covered by comprehensive regulations enforced by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), whose primary mission is ensuring safe operation within the industry. Workers in other occupations routinely operate company-owned vehicles for deliveries, sales and repair calls, client visits, and countless other job tasks. In these instances, the employer providing the vehicle generally plays a major role in setting safety, maintenance, and training policy. The work situation in which the employer has the least control over motor vehicle operation is one in which a worker drives a personal vehicle for work purposes. Here, the employer may have less opportunity to influence worker safety, since the employer has little or no control over the selection and maintenance of these vehicles.

“The roadway is a work environment unlike any other.”

Prevention of work-related roadway crashes presents daunting challenges to employers, injury prevention and safety professionals, and government agencies responsible for roadway safety and occupational safety. The roadway is a work environment unlike any other. Employers and workers are

affected by external events and environmental changes to a far greater extent than in more closed work settings where the employer can exert substantial control over the work environment. To ensure worker safety on the roadway, employers must continually readjust operational plans and safety policy in response to events largely beyond their control, such as long-term roadway construction projects, changes in traffic laws, changing market and customer demands that bring about changes in transportation patterns and volumes, and changes in government regulations. A single employer may have workers operating many different types of motor vehicles, each requiring different levels of training, maintenance, and recordkeeping. Injury prevention and safety professionals must also look beyond their usual boundaries if they are to develop effective methods for preventing work-related roadway crashes. In some work settings, there are widely accepted interventions that will prevent injury if they are implemented properly. Examples are control of hazardous energy and fall protection. In contrast, the roadway work setting requires safety professionals to consider issues and prevention modes that apply to the broader roadway safety environment (e.g., roadway design, restraint use, and vehicle crashworthiness). This creates both challenges and opportunities for prevention. Challenges exist because the complexities increase when viewing the problem from both an occupational safety perspective and a broad roadway safety perspective. However, the situation offers the opportunity to borrow from the roadway safety community at large: what works for the general population may also work in the occupational setting. Likewise, the work of occupational safety professionals can contribute to the prevention of all roadway fatalities.

The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of current issues affecting work-related roadway crashes with a focus on preventing injuries and fatalities to vehicle drivers and passengers. Fatalities and injuries to pedestrian workers are not within the scope of this document, nor are events occurring at locations such as parking lots and industrial sites away from public roadways. The document begins by illustrating the scope and nature of the problem and presenting data on both fatal and nonfatal injuries. The next section summarizes the large body of regulations that apply to the operation of motor vehicles. Some are specific to work-related driving, and others apply to all drivers or all vehicles. The sections that follow address special topics critical to the formulation of strategies to prevent work-related roadway fatalities and injuries. These topics include driver fatigue, special issues regarding the motor carrier industry, driver distraction and cell phone use, age-related factors, and general fleet safety issues. Following the discussions of special topics are detailed strategies for preventing work-related roadway crashes. The document concludes with lists of additional readings and vehicle-related Internet resources from government agencies, research organizations, industry, and citizen groups.

^*The terms “roadway” and “highway” both denote any public thoroughfare, regardless of size or traffic volume. The term “roadway” is used in this document except when   referring to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which uses the term “highway.”

The term “crash” includes the following: (1) a collision between vehicles, (2) contact of a vehicle with a stationary object such as a tree or a guardrail, and (3) a vehicle  related event that may injure or kill the occupants but does not involve contact with another vehicle or object (for example, a rollover or loss of control).

2. Data on Work-Related Roadway Crashes

2.1 Sources of Data

No single satisfactory source of data exists for worker injuries and fatalities resulting from work-related roadway crashes. Specialized data systems for work-related fatalities may capture high proportions of cases yet lack the necessary details about circumstances and risk factors surrounding work related roadway crashes. On the other hand, systems designed to collect information about all roadway crashes may contain more relevant data but may fail to determine the work status of the crash victims.

The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), a program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is a widely used source of data on occupational fatalities in the United States. CFOI identifies high-risk demographic and industry/occupation groups, and it includes a case narrative. However, since it was designed to accommodate all types of occupational fatalities, CFOI does not contain sufficient detail on work-related roadway crashes. A primary source of data on nonfatal injuries to workers is the annual Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) (another BLS data system), which produces national injury estimates and rates from a sample survey of business establishments. The SOII data provide case counts by industry, occupation, source of injury, nature of injury, part of body affected, and type of event. However, they contain neither case narratives for individual injury incidents nor information about risk factors or circumstances.

These BLS data sources specific to occupational injuries and fatalities may be supplemented by U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) sources: the National Automotive Sampling System (which consists of the General Estimates System [GES] and the Crashworthiness Data System) and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). These DOT data systems are designed specifically to capture information about crashes that occur in traffic. They offer a variety of valuable data elements, including crash mechanism, vehicle characteristics, manner of collision, environmental conditions, and driver risk factors. However, they do not always note whether a worker was involved, nor do they record employment information such as occupation or industry for workers who are identified.

To take advantage of the strengths of each type of data system—work-related and vehicle-related—this report presents information from both. Presented first are data on all work-related crashes from the CFOI and SOII. These data are followed by more detailed information about crashes related to large trucks. This information was taken from CFOI, DOT data systems, and other sources.

2.2 Fatal Injuries to Workers

CFOI is a multiple-source surveillance system that draws on administrative documents from Federal and State agencies (e.g., death certificates, medical examiner records, workers’ compensation reports, and regulatory agency reports) as well as media reports and followup questionnaires to employers and other informants as needed. CFOI defines a fatal work-related crash as one that occurs while the decedent is a driver or passenger in a motor vehicle for work purposes; incidents are excluded if they occur during a commute to or from work. CFOI data that appear in this report were extracted from a special research file prepared for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). This file excludes data from New York City.^* To accommodate the employment data used to calculate fatality rates, military personnel and volunteer workers were excluded from the tabulations that follow.

Data from CFOI indicate that 11,952 work-related highway fatalities^† of civilian workers occurred during 1992–2000, with an average annual rate of 1.08 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers (Table 1). These fatalities increased in number by 18.7% from 1992 to 2000 and were the leading cause of occupational fatalities throughout the period. Death rates from work-related highway fatalities increased from 0.99 to 1.13 between 1992 and 1999, declining to 1.02 in 2000.

^*New York City declined to authorize inclusion of its data in the special research file prepared for NIOSH.
^†BLS uses the term “highway” instead of “roadway” to denote any public thoroughfare, regardless of size or traffic volume.

2.2.1 Source of Injury

“Semi-trucks were the leading primary vehicle source of fatalities to workers during 1992–2000.”

For vehicle collisions, CFOI defines the primary source of injury as the vehicle occupied by the worker who died. The secondary source may be the vehicle that struck or was struck by the worker’s vehicle; it may also be an object such as a tree or guardrail. In many single-vehicle crashes, no secondary source exists. Semi-trucks were the leading primary vehicle source (n=3,378, 28.3%) of fatalities to workers during 1992–2000 (Table 2). Automobiles were second to semi-trucks (n=2,881, 24.1%), and pickup trucks (n=1,397, 11.7%) ranked third as the primary vehicle source (Table 2).

CFOI classifies the secondary source of injury as the object that generated the source of injury or was related to the event. No secondary source was recorded for 26.2% of the fatalities. For those events in which a secondary source was recorded, more than 20% of the sources were objects other than vehicles. Of these, trees (6.0%), guardrails (4.6%), towers/poles (2.3%), and bridges (2.2%) were the most frequently struck objects. For those events in which a vehicle was the secondary source, semi-trucks (14.9%), automobiles (12.6%), and pickup trucks (5.1%) were the leading vehicle categories (Table 3). When events involved two vehicles and semi-trucks were the primary source, semi-trucks were also most likely to be the secondary source. Similarly, when automobiles were the primary source, they were also most likely to be the secondary vehicle (data not shown in table).

2.2.2 Type of Event

“More than 49% (n=5,877) of the work-related highway fatalities during 1992–2000 were collisions between vehicles.”

More than 49% (n=5,877) of the work-related highway fatalities during 1992–2000 were collisions between vehicles (Figure 1). The second most frequent event type resulting in a worker death was a highway noncollision incident (e.g., loss of control, rollover) (n=3,160, 26.4%), followed by a vehicle leaving the highway and striking a stationary object along the roadside (n=2,106, 17.6%). In a small number of incidents, the vehicle struck an object or other obstruction in the roadway—such as a box, log, or traffic control device (n=219, 1.8%). Noncollisions were the most common type of event found among semi-trucks (n=1,202, 35.6%), whereas collisions between vehicles were by far the most frequent type of event among automobiles (n=1,931, 67.0%).

Figure 1. Work-related highway fatalities by type of event, 1992–2000.
(Source: CFOI special research file [excludes New York City].)

2.2.3 Geographic Distribution

CFOI records whether a crash occurred in an urban area (defined by CFOI as being part of a metropolitan statistical area) or a rural area (defined by CFOI as being outside a metropolitan statistical area). Between 1992 and 2000, 54.8% of the fatal work-related highway crashes occurred within urban areas, and 44.0% occurred in rural areas. Urban or rural location was not reported for the remaining crashes. Trucks of all types accounted for 64.9% of all fatal rural crashes and 52.1% of fatal urban crashes. Semi-trucks were slightly more likely to be involved in fatal events in rural areas than in urban areas (52.4% versus 46.8%). In contrast, fatalities to automobile occupants were much more likely to occur in urban areas (63.5% versus 34.6%).

“Between 1994 and 2000, more work-related highway fatalities occurred on State and U.S. highways than on any other type of specified roadway.”

In 1994, CFOI began collecting information about the type of roadway on which a crash occurred. Between 1994 and 2000, more work-related highway fatalities occurred on State and U.S. highways than on any other type of specified roadway (n=3,608, 37.6%) (Table 4). Interstates and freeways accounted for 25.8% of all work-related highway fatalities, and local roads and streets accounted for 24.2%. For most vehicle types, State and U.S. highways were the most frequent type of road on which a crash occurred. Two exceptions were semi-trucks, for which interstate highways were the predominant road type (43.1%), and “all other” vehicles, for which the highest proportion of fatalities occurred on local streets (38.6%). Although fatal automobile crashes most often took place on State and U.S. highways (36.7%), 31.8% occurred on local streets. In contrast, only 8.5% of fatal semi-truck crashes occurred on local streets.

2.2.4 Time of Incident

“For semi-truck occupants, higher proportions of fatalities occurred between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m., and the greatest number of deaths occurred at the 5 a.m. ”

For all work-related fatalities on the highway, the greatest numbers of crashes occurred between the daytime work hours of 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. (Figure 2). Fatalities of automobile occupants followed a similar pattern (Figure 3). In contrast, the fatality distribution for semi-truck occupants was slightly skewed, with higher proportions of fatalities between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m., and the greatest number of deaths occurring during the 5 a.m. hour (that is, between 4:30 and 5:29 a.m.) (Figure 4).

At all hours of the day, highway collisions between vehicles were the most common type of fatal event (Figure 5). Between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., the proportion of fatalities attributable to these collisions ranged from 51% to 58%, with 23% to 27% attributable to noncollision events. In the late evening and early morning hours, however, the contribution of collisions decreased, and the contribution of noncollision events increased. Events in which a vehicle struck a stationary object on the roadside accounted for 17.6% of all fatalities but accounted for 24% to 28% of fatalities between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Figure 2. Work-related highway fatalities by time of incident, 1992–2000.
Excludes 2,138 cases with missing data for time of incident.
(Source: CFOI special research file [excludes New York City].)

2.2.5 Industry Division

CFOI classifies cases by the industry in which the decedent was employed, using the 1987 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) [OMB 1987]. Between 1992 and 2000, the industry division with the highest number of fatalities from work-related roadway crashes was Transportation, Communications, and Public Utilities (TCPU) (n=3,893, 32.6%) (Table 5). This industry division includes transportation by rail, water, air, truck, taxicab, or bus as well as companies that provide telephone, gas, water, refuse, or electric services. This industry division had more than twice the number of fatalities reported in Services, which covers diverse industry sectors such as health care, education, business services, and auto repair (n=1,698, 14.2%). The highest vehicle-related fatality rate (4.64/100,000 FTEs) was also found in the TCPU industry division. Although the overall frequencies were comparatively low for Mining (which includes oil and gas extraction) and Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing, these two industry divisions had the second and third highest fatality rates, respectively (3.24/100,000 FTEs and 2.58/100,000 FTEs).

Figure 3. Work-related highway fatalities among automobile occupants by time of incident,
1992–2000. Excludes 512 cases with missing data for time of incident.
(Source: CFOI special research file [excludes New York City].)

Figure 4. Work-related highway fatalities among semi-truck occupants by time of incident,
1992–2000. Excludes 603 cases with missing data for time of incident.
(Source: CFOI special research file [excludes New York City].)

Figure 5. Work-related highway fatalities attributable to collisions between vehicles,
noncollisions, and vehicle collisions with stationary objects, by timeof incident,
1992–2000. Excludes 1,965 cases with missing data for time of incident.
(Source: CFOI special research file [excludes New York City].)

The types of vehicles occupied by workers who died in highway crashes varied by industry division. Most of the worker fatalities within the TCPU industry division were attributed to semi-trucks (n=2,509, 74.3%). For Mining, 37.5% of the primary source vehicles were pickup trucks. Off-road and industrial vehicles, including farm tractors, contributed 30.2% of the vehicular deaths in Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing. Three industry divisions had high proportions of fatalities in which the automobile was the primary source of injury—Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate (65.0%); Public Administration (58.2%); and Services (47.5%). For more detailed descriptions of the SIC industry divisions used in this document, see Appendix A.

2.2.6 Occupation Group

CFOI classifies worker occupation using Bureau of the Census (BOC) codes developed for the 1990 U.S. Census [BOC 1992]. Workers in transportation and material moving occupations had the highest rates of vehicle-related highway fatalities among occupation groups (11.11/100,000 FTEs), 4.6 times the rate of persons in Farming, Forestry, and Fishing occupations (2.44/100,000 FTEs) (Table 6). Truck drivers, who are included among Transportation and Material Moving occupations, experienced 17.77 deaths/100,000 FTEs, a rate that is considerably higher than that for this occupation group as a whole. For more detailed descriptions of the BOC occupation groups used in this document, see Appendix B.

2.2.7 Age of Victim

Between 1992 and 2000, the largest number of work-related fatalities in roadway crashes was among workers aged 35 to 44 (n=2,940, 24.6%). However, the highest rate occurred among workers aged 65 and older. This rate (3.77/100,000 FTEs) was 2.3 times the rate for the next leading age group (workers aged 55 to 64) (Table 7).

Table 7 also demonstrates that much of the overall 18.7% increase in work-related highway fatalities was borne by adult workers. Over the 9-year period, a 44.7% increase occurred in the number of fatalities among workers aged 45 to 54, and a 38.9% increase occurred among workers aged 55 to 64. Workers aged 15 to 19 experienced a 32.3% increase. Increases were smallest among younger adult workers aged 20 to 34 and among workers aged 65 and older.

2.2.7.1 Young Workers

Table 8 displays age-specific frequencies and rates of work-related highway fatalities among young workers. Between 1992 and 2000, work-related highway incidents were the leading cause of occupational fatalities among persons aged 15 to 19, accounting for 22.9% of occupational fatalities in this age group.

The majority of work-related highway fatalities among workers aged 15 to 19 occurred within three industry divisions: Retail Trade (n=77, 23.6%), Construction (n=63, 19.3%), and Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing (n=50, 15.3%). The young victims of these incidents were most often employed in Transportation and Material Moving occupations (n=85, 26.1%), as Laborers (n=59, 18.1%), and in Farming, Forestry, and fishing occupations (n=53, 16.3%).

For 73.7% of the youth fatalities (n=239), the primary source of injury was something other than an automobile: 119 were trucks, 68 of which were identified as pickup trucks. In 72.7% (n=237) of the incidents, the fatally injured youth was driving. Compared with workers of all ages, young workers were slightly less often involved in collisions between vehicles (45.7% versus 49.2% for workers of all ages), but they were more often involved in noncollisions (32.8% versus 26.4% for workers of all ages). Most of the incidents among workers aged 15 to 19 occurred between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. (225 of the 275 cases for which time of incident was reported).

2.2.7.2 Older Workers

“Workers aged 65 and older had the highest rate of work-related highway fatalities between 1992 and 2000.”

Workers aged 65 and older had the highest rate of work-related highway fatalities between 1992 and 2000—more than twice that of workers aged 55 to 64 and 3.5 times the rate for workers of all ages (see Table 7). Employment and event characteristics for older workers who died in highway crashes differed in some respects from those for workers of all ages. Although the highest proportion of older worker fatalities (22.7%) occurred in the TCPU industry division, this proportion was somewhat lower than the 32.6% seen among workers of all ages. Crash victims aged 65 and older were more than twice as likely to be employed in the agriculture, forestry, and fishing industry division (19.5% versus 7.2% for workers of all ages). Agricultural employment was particularly common among crash victims aged 75 or older: 29.3% compared with 16.5% for crash victims aged 65 to 74. Surprisingly high proportions of older crash victims were employed in transportation and material moving occupations: 43.7% of workers aged 65 to 74 and 29.8% of those aged 75 or older, compared with 46.5% for workers of all ages.

Older workers who died in highway crashes were less likely than workers of all ages to be truck occupants (42.5% versus 57.6% for workers of all ages) and more likely to be automobile occupants (29.8% versus 24.1% for workers of all ages). Only 3.8% of semi-truck occupants who died in highway crashes were aged 65 or older, and only 0.5% were aged 75 or older. The great majority of fatalities of semi-truck occupants (more than 91%), occurred among younger adult workers aged 25 to 64.

Crash victims aged 65 or older were slightly more likely than workers of all ages to have been driving the vehicle at the time of the crash (90.0% versus 87.4%). The proportion of those who were driving did not decrease at age 75 and older. Compared with workers of all ages, older crash victims were more likely to be involved in a collision between vehicles (58.0% versus 49.2% for workers of all ages), and less likely to be involved in a noncollision event (22.9% versus 26.4% for workers of all ages). From 1994 to 2000, fatal crashes among older workers occurred less frequently on interstate highways or freeways (18.8%) than in the general worker population (25.8%).

2.2.8 Sex

The majority of work-related highway fatalities occurred among male workers (n=10,714, 89.6%), who accounted for most of the increase in frequency between 1992 and 2000 (Figure 6). For the 9-year period, the average annual vehicle-related fatality rate for male workers was six times that for female workers (1.66/100,000 FTEs versus 0.27/100,000 FTEs). However, these events accounted for proportionally more of the total occupational fatalities among female workers (29.1%) than among male workers (21.6%).

2.2.9 Worker Activity

The vast majority of work-related highway fatalities occurred among workers whose primary activity at the time of the incident was driving (n=10,440, 87.3%). An additional 10.9% (n=1,302) were workers riding in a vehicle. Some other occupant status was reported for 210 victims (1.8%). The highest proportions of workers who died while driving versus riding were in semi-trucks (93.7% versus 5.6%) and automobiles (89.5% versus 9.3%). For vans, a smaller discrepancy existed between the proportions driving (77.1%) versus riding (22.2%). Overall, male workers were nearly twice as likely as female workers to be driving versus riding (Table 9).

Figure 6. Work-related highway fatalities by sex, 1992–2000.
(Source: CFOI special research file [excludes New York City].)

2.2.10 Race

The majority of the work-related highway fatalities occurred among white workers (n=10,177, 85.1%), but the fatality rates were similar for white and black workers (1.08/100,000 FTEs versus 1.04/100,000 FTEs). For both races, TCPU ranked as the leading industry division for fatalities, followed by Services. However, differences by occupation were observed between white and black workers. The greatest proportions of fatalities for white workers occurred within Transportation and Material Moving (n=4,677, 46.0%), Precision Production, Craft, and Repair (n=929, 9.1%), and Sales (n=808, 7.9%) occupations. For black workers, Transportation and Material Moving (n=708, 58.9%) also ranked the highest in number of fatalities, with Services occupations (n=120, 10.0%) and Laborers (n=98, 8.2%) ranking second and third

Within occupations, fatality rates differed somewhat for white and black workers. Rates for Transportation and Material Moving occupations (which include truck drivers) were higher among white workers (11.30/100,000 FTEs versus 9.70/100,000 FTE). Within Sales occupations, white workers had about 1.9 times the fatality rate of black workers (0.69 versus 0.36). In two occupation groups, black workers had higher fatality rates. The rate for black workers in Farming, Forestry, and Fishing occupations was 1.3 times the rate for white workers (3.04/100,000 FTEs versus 2.31/100,000 FTEs). Black Laborers had a rate of 1.54/100,000 FTEs, compared with 1.18/100,000 FTEs among white Laborers.

2.3 NONFATAL INJURIES TO WORKERS

Data on nonfatal occupational injuries associated with highway crashes are available from SOII, a program of the BLS. SOII uses the same source and event categories as CFOI. As with CFOI data, the source of injury is the type of vehicle occupied by the injured worker. Injury estimates from SOII exclude all government workers, self-employed workers, and workers on farms with fewer than 11 employees.

In 2000, an estimated 44,863 nonfatal occupational injuries were associated with highway crashes and resulted in days away from work. The greatest numbers of nonfatal injuries by far were to workers in the Services and TCPU industry divisions (Table 10). TCPU had nearly four times the total injury rate for all industries and more than twice the injury rate of any other industry division.

In 2000, trucks and automobiles were associated with the highest frequencies and incidence rates of highway crashes in which a motorized highway vehicle was the primary injury source (Table 11). Among truck types, semi-trucks and delivery trucks were associated with the greatest numbers of injuries and the highest median number of days away from work. Although injuries related to motorcycles were relatively few in number, they were the most severe in terms of median number of days away from work.

Other data from SOII provide information about all occupational injuries to truck drivers. Truck drivers experienced more nonfatal occupational injuries than workers in any other occupation in 2000, accounting for 8.2% of injuries but only 2.6% of FTEs. Transportation incidents (which include highway crashes, nonhighway crashes, and pedestrian incidents) accounted for 13.5% of the estimated 136,072 injuries to truck drivers in 2000, and they were the third leading cause of injury to truck drivers after overexertion (29.6%) and contact with objects and equipment (19.4%). More than half of the overexertion injuries were associated with lifting [BLS 2002]. This fact is significant because truck drivers commonly load and unload cargo as part of their job duties.

2.4 FATAL AND NONFATAL CRASHES INVOLVING LARGE TRUCKS

FARS, a program of NHTSA, is a rich source of data on crashes involving large trucks. FARS is a national census of highway crashes in which a fatality occurred within 30 days of the crash. Data are abstracted from police crash reports, death certificates, driving records, and other sources. The National Automotive Sampling System GES, also collected by NHTSA, provides national estimates of police-reported traffic crashes occurring on public roadways and is one of the primary sources of data on nonfatal vehicle-related injuries in the general population. Another component of the National Automotive Sampling System is the Crashworthiness Data System, which collects data on approximately 5,000 passenger vehicle tow-away crashes each year. The Crashworthiness Data System does in-depth investigations using data sources such as driver interviews, crash scene inspections, vehicle inspections, and police crash reports.

FARS and CFOI classify trucks differently. FARS uses a combination of body type and weight. CFOI has fewer categories, which are based largely on the function of the truck and do not take vehicle weight into account. FARS provides data on large trucks with gross vehicle weight ratings (GVWRs)^‡ greater than 10,000 lb, whereas the closest equivalent in CFOI is the source category “semi-trucks.” Although the two data systems are not directly comparable, the data collected through each are complementary. It is important to note that FARS is not restricted to work-related highway crashes, but it can be assumed that the great majority of large-truck crashes in which the driver is killed are work related. Responses to other FARS data elements related to commercial driver’s licensure and transport of hazardous materials may also suggest that a crash occurred on the job.

^‡The GVWR is “the maximum rated capacity of a vehicle, including the weight of the base vehicle, all added equipment, driver and passengers, and all cargo loaded into or on the vehicle. Actual weight may be less than or greater than GVWR.” [NHTSA 2001a].

2.4.1 FARS Data

“Trucks with a GVWR of more than 26,000 lb made up 87.4% of fatal large-truck crashes in 2000.”

In recent years, sharp increases in the number of large trucks on the road and in vehicle miles traveled by large trucks have been accompanied by an increase in the number of fatalities involving these vehicles. Between 1992 and 2000, the annual number of vehicle miles traveled increased by 34% for large trucks. FARS data show that fatalities involving large trucks increased from 4,462 in 1992 to 5,395 in 1998 (+20.9%), decreasing slightly to 5,211 in 2000 [FMCSA 2002a]. Although rates of fatal crash involvement for large trucks (number of vehicles involved per 100 million vehicle miles traveled) declined from 3.8 to 2.6 between 1988 and 1992, they have shown little improvement since that time. The fatal crash involvement rate for large trucks in 2000 was slightly higher than the rate for passenger vehicles (2.4 versus 1.9), although the rate for nonfatal injury crashes for large trucks was only one-third that of passenger vehicles (48.8 versus 142.7) [FMCSA 2002a]. Crashes involving at least one large truck accounted for 12.1% of all fatal crashes and 4.6% of nonfatal injury crashes in 2000 [FMCSA 2002a].

Occupants of large trucks accounted for 14.2% of those killed in large-truck crashes in 2000, whereas 77.9% were occupants of another motor vehicle, and the remaining 7.9% were nonoccupants such as pedestrians and pedalcyclists [FMCSA 2002a]. Of the 4,930 large trucks involved in fatal crashes in 2000, 62.4% were tractors pulling single semi-trailers, 3.0% were doubles, and 0.2% were triples [FMCSA 2002a]. It is important to note that although large trucks are defined as those with GVWR greater than 10,000 lb, the heaviest trucks were most often involved in fatal crashes. Trucks with a GVWR of more than 26,000 lb made up 87.4% of fatal large-truck crashes in 2000 [FMCSA 2002a].

Recent research has been conducted on how the actions of large-truck and passenger-vehicle drivers influence the occurrence of large-truck crashes. FARS data include “driver-related factors” that provide information about the actions of each driver involved in the crash. The presence of a driver-related factor does not imply fault but does suggest that some action taken by that driver was judged to have contributed to the crash. For the 2,714 fatal crashes in 2000 involving a passenger vehicle and a large truck with a GVWR of more than 10,000 lb, driver-related factors were recorded in 25.5% of crashes for the truck driver and in 82.2% of crashes for the passenger-vehicle driver [FMCSA 2002a]. In these multiple-vehicle events, the truck driver was most likely to have been assigned one or more driver-related factors when the truck rear-ended the passenger vehicle. The 2000 FARS data also showed that truck drivers were much more likely to be assigned a driver-related factor in fatal single-vehicle crashes (70.3%) than in fatal multiple-vehicle crashes (28.8%) [FMCSA 2002a]. Despite the fact that actions of passenger vehicle drivers are more often judged to have contributed to fatal crashes with large trucks, the same five factors are most often present for drivers of large trucks as for drivers of passenger vehicles:

• Driving too fast for conditions or in excess of the posted speed limit
  
  
• Failure to stay in the proper lane
  
  
• Running off the road
  
  
• Inattention (talking, eating, etc.)
  
  
• Failure to yield the right of way [FMCSA 2002a; NHTSA 2002b]

Two studies analyzed fatal crashes between passenger vehicles and large trucks in greater detail [Blower 1998; Stuster 1999]. The primary data source for both was Trucks Involved in Fatal Accidents (TIFA), a subset of FARS that verifies cases and collects additional data through telephone surveys. Both studies used driver-related factors collected through FARS and TIFA to assess the relative contributions of the truck driver and the passenger vehicle driver. The first study, using TIFA data from 1994 and 1995, included 5,453 fatal crashes involving two vehicles—a large truck and a passenger vehicle. In 4,551 of these crashes, only the driver of the passenger vehicle died; whereas in 90 crashes, only the truck driver died. Both the passenger vehicle driver and the truck driver died in 23 of these incidents, and neither died in the remaining 789 [Blower 1998].

The passenger vehicle driver had a driver-related factor coded in nearly 81% of the incidents, and the truck driver had a driver-related factor coded in nearly 27%. The most common scenarios fatal to the truck driver were (1) a rear-end collision in which a truck struck the passenger vehicle, (2) a passenger vehicle that turned across the truck’s path, and (3) a sideswipe with both vehicles traveling in the same direction and the truck encroaching (10.6% each). The most common crash scenarios fatal to the passenger vehicle driver were (1) a head-on collision into the truck’s lane (25.3%), (2) a straight path with the truck striking the passenger vehicle (16.8%), and (3) a rear-end collision with the passenger vehicle striking the truck (11.7%) [Blower 1998].

The second study [Stuster 1999] sought to identify unsafe driving acts of passenger vehicle drivers that might lead to collisions with large trucks. FARS and TIFA data were supplemented by crash reports for large-truck crashes (i.e., trucks with a GVWR greater than 10,000 lb) and interviews with collision investigation experts and truck drivers. The final product was a ranked list of unsafe driving acts based on experts’ assessment of the combined danger and frequency of each act. The most critical unsafe driving acts were judged to be as follows:

• driving inattentively (reading, talking, using the phone, fatigue)
  
  
• merging improperly, causing the truck to maneuver or brake quickly
  
  
• failure to stop at a stop sign or traffic signal (also stopping too early or too late)
  
  
• failure to slow down in a construction zone
  
  
• unsafe speed (approaching too fast from the rear or misjudging truck speed)
  
  
• following too closely

“The most common factor in truck versus passenger vehicle crashes was the passenger vehicle driver’s lack of knowledge and awareness about the performance capabilities of large trucks.”

The Stuster [1999] study concluded that the most common factor in truck versus passenger vehicle crashes was the passenger vehicle driver’s lack of knowledge and awareness about the performance capabilities of large trucks. Specifically, drivers may be unaware of limitations in acceleration, braking, and visibility. Also, passenger vehicle drivers may not fully appreciate the extent to which the considerable size advantage of large trucks places them at risk of injury.

2.4.2 CFOI Data

CFOI showed a 64.3% increase in work-related highway deaths of semi-truck occupants from 1992 to 2000. However, the data show that the burden of work-related semi-truck crashes is shared by workers other than truck drivers. CFOI identified 4,758 worker fatalities related to semi-trucks. The majority were semi-truck occupants (3,378), followed by workers in other types of vehicles that collided with semi-trucks (1,169), and pedestrian workers struck by semi-trucks (211). Of the 3,378 semi-truck occupant fatalities, 35.6% involved noncollision events, 33.0% were collisions, and 25.4% were events involving a vehicle versus a stationary object. The truck most often struck no other object (33.0%), another semi-truck (18.1%), another vehicle (14.7%), or a guardrail or other barrier (9.9%). TCPU had the highest frequency and rate of semi-truck occupant fatalities of any industry division (n=2,509, 2.99 deaths/100,000 FTEs). Fatalities among semi-truck occupants were lowest at 9 p.m. (n=57), increasing steadily and peaking at 5 a.m. (n=172) (see Figure 4).

The 1,169 other workers killed in semi-truck incidents were most often driving or riding in automobiles (30.5%), pickup trucks (26.0%), vans (13.9%), and farm tractors (2.9%). The highest frequencies were in the Services (215) and TCPU industry divisions (177); rates were highest in mining (0.39) and agriculture, forestry, and fishing (0.34). In contrast with fatalities of semi-truck occupants, these events occurred most frequently between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

2.5 DATA SUMMARY

Available data on work-related roadway crashes show an increase in the number and rate of fatalities between 1992 and 2000, despite declines in work-related fatalities as a whole. According to CFOI data, collisions between vehicles made up nearly half the fatal events, followed by noncollision events and collisions in which the worker’s vehicle left the highway and struck a stationary object on the roadside. Workers who were occupants of trucks accounted for nearly 58% of all fatalities; nearly half of these were semi-truck occupants. However, crashes involving semi-trucks affect workers in vehicles that collide with semi-trucks as well as pedestrian workers.

CFOI data also reveal that workers employed in the TCPU industry division (which includes commercial trucking) were at highest risk of fatality. Those employed in transportation and material moving occupations (truck drivers in particular) had far higher fatality rates than workers in any other occupation group. Fatality risk varied across age groups: workers aged 65 or older had more than three times the fatality risk of workers of all ages; and workers younger than age 20 (who might be expected to have less exposure to vehicles in the workplace) had fatality rates similar to those for workers of all ages.

Data from DOT sources provide additional information about crashes involving large trucks with a GVWR of more than 10,000 lb. The number of fatal crashes involving large trucks decreased slightly in 2000 following a 21% increase between 1992 and 1998. Large-truck crashes involving fatalities are much more often fatal to occupants of vehicles other than the truck. Studies suggest that factors such as driving too fast for conditions, failure to keep in the proper lane, and inattention are commonly present in fatal crashes involving large trucks and that these factors are more often noted for the drivers of vehicles other than the truck.

These results provide valuable information, identifying groups of workers at highest risk and general circumstances under which crashes occur. The following reviews of safety regulations and the scientific literature complement the data analysis, providing insight into how the problem of work-related crashes is being addressed through regulatory measures and through research to increase understanding of risk factors and identify promising prevention strategies.