There is convincing evidence to suggest that older truck drivers are a highly valued cohort in the transportation industry. Thus, ensuring the safety, health and wellbeing of this workforce should be a priority so that transportation industry employers can develop strategies to keep them driving for as long as they are safe on the road. As a first step in achieving this goal, the aim of this study was to better understand the key factors associated with managing the safety, health and wellbeing of older drivers in the trucking industry. Two focus groups with safety managers (n = 15) trucking companies in the United States were conducted to gain an understanding of the barriers and facilitators in planning and managing the safety of older truck drivers. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis and involved a broad categorisation of all meaningful data into four key areas (i.e., advantages, concerns, current strategies and challenges). Themes were subsequently identified within each of the four key areas. The results confirmed that older truck drivers are valued in the workforce for their work ethic and safety attitudes; however, there are multiple and interrelated factors influencing the safety management of older truck drivers. It was also found that there are few interventions that are targeted to the specific needs of older truck drivers and aligned to the challenges in managing the safety risks. Overall, the findings of this study support recommendations to address the barriers associated with managing the safety of older truck drivers.

Download a PDF of "Identification of Factors Contributing to the Decline of Traffic Fatalities in the United States from 2008 to 2012" by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for free.

This article summarizes the recommendations on data and methodology issues for studying commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue of a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study. A framework is provided that identifies the various factors affecting driver fatigue and relating driver fatigue to crash risk and long-term driver health. The relevant factors include characteristics of the driver, vehicle, carrier and environment. Limitations of existing data are considered and potential sources of additional data described. Statistical methods that can be used to improve understanding of the relevant relationships from observational data are also described. The recommendations for enhanced data collection and the use of modern statistical methods for causal inference have the potential to enhance our understanding of the relationship of fatigue to highway safety and to long-term driver health.

Interior crash protection has not yet received adequate attention for heavy trucks, as such protection did for automobiles. The goal of this pilot project was to determine the nature of truck crashes that would remain after full deployment of advanced collision avoidance technologies and to assess the crashes with respect to truck driver injury and prevention. Heavy-truck occupant safety was analyzed according to injury pattern and severity to help identify and characterize heavy-truck crashes to define opportunities for improved truck crashworthiness and reduce truck driver fatalities and injuries. A finite element (FE) model combining heavy-truck cabin structure, interior components, dummy, and passive restraint systems was developed to simulate a head-on crash into a rigid barrier at 35 mph, the impact conditions used with the NHTSA new car assessment program test. This crash also represented an impact condition that was overrepresented in real-world crash data and for which there was room for improvement in occupant safety. A full FE tractor semitrailer model was employed to collect the crash pulse resulting on the truck cab as outcome of the computer simulation, which was then applied to defined locations of the FE cab model. Acceleration data were collected from impact of different parts of the dummy with interior components of the occupant compartment to assist in the calculation of body injury levels. The researchers developed a comparative risk study to evaluate the effectiveness of passive safety restraints, which would lead to preliminary guidance on the effectiveness of the use of such occupant injury mitigation systems.

This study was conducted by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) under a contract from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The objective of the study was to analyze truck driver injury and loss of life in truck crashes related to cab crashworthiness and investigate regulations and industry trends in relation to truck occupant protection. The goal is to assemble information on truck driver casualties in crashes that would assist in understanding injury mechanisms and to review regulatory and industry initiatives concerned with reducing the number of truck occupant fatalities and the severity of injuries. The commercial vehicle focus is on truck-tractors and single-unit vehicles in the NHTSA Class 7 and 8 weight range. The study used UMTRI’s Trucks Involved in Fatal Accidents (TIFA) survey file and NHTSA’s General Estimates System (GES) file for categorical analysis and the Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS) for a supplemental clinical review of cab performance in frontal and rollover crash types. The study includes analysis of truck driver injury and injury mechanisms, a review of regulatory development and industry safety initiatives including barriers to implementation. A set of countermeasures to address truck driver safety risk are presented.

Advanced crash avoidance technologies (ACATs) for trucks have been developed in recent years and are beginning to be deployed. Prior to the development of standards for heavy truck crashworthiness and occupant protection, additional characterization of the crash-injury problem, current medium/heavy truck crashworthiness, and the potential benefits of crashworthy structures in heavy straight trucks and in truck cabs and trailers is needed. The goal of the project is to determine the nature of truck crashes that would remain after full deployment of ACATs, and to assess them in terms of truck driver injury and prevention. Then, using finite element (FE) analysis and computer simulation, exemplar tractor-semitrailer crashes were simulated to identify opportunities to improve occupant protection. Rollover and frontal collisions account for most truck driver fatalities and serious injuries. It was estimated that full deployment of ACATs would reduce truck crashes by 10%, and up to 30% of riskiest crash types. However, rollover and frontal impacts would remain as the primary crash types to be addressed. A full truck cabin model was developed and employed in the FE computer simulations to analyze occupant behavior and injury risk during frontal and rollover crashes. An integral part of this truck cabin model was the development of the occupant compartment components as no publicly available heavy truck models exist that contains interior components in the cabin. Additionally, researchers provided a methodology that can be employed and /or adapted to conduct future research within heavy truck occupant safety with use of computational analysis. Analysis of restraint systems during frontal and rollover crashes revealed unacceptable results according to current injury criteria standards and future work needs to be conducted to develop more effective restraint systems to increase occupant safety.