Truck deaths

Abstract

More than a quarter of all work-related fatalities in New South Wales in 1984 involved trucks, mostly travelling long distances. In up to half of these cases fatigue was a major factor. Scrutiny of the work schedules of particular cases showed that the drivers were not significantly in violation of any regulations controlling hours of driving and that the basic problem is that they tend to use rest periods not for sleep but rather for loading and unloading. This is in part attributable to the economic pressures generated by the freight forwarding business which necessitate long hours of work on the part of drivers. The New South Wales Occupational Health and Safety Act, which requires employers to provide a safe system of work, is potentially applicable to many of these cases, but none of the fatalities was investigated by the agency responsible for enforcing this Act. This paper suggests that a few precedent-setting court cases might encourage the industry to provide safer systems of work. Show more