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Fatigue: What the road statistics do not show
January 2003
An Australian survey of more than a thousand long distance truck drivers has found that in a 12-month period almost half had "nodded off" while driving. One in five reported a "dangerous" fatigue-related event during their last trip and that they had either "nodded-off", unintentionally crossed lanes or had a near miss.
The fact that none of the incidents resulted in a serious accident was pure luck. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has reported the findings after conducting a major national survey on driver fatigue in the transport industry.
"The results signal... the fact that fatigue-related incidents are a common feature for long-distance truck drivers and, if the circumstances in which these near misses occur conspire against them, may lead directly or indirectly to a catastrophic crash," said the bureau.
The fact that many truck drivers appear to lead a charmed life is underlined by figures quoted from the bureau by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Federal Minister for Transport, Senator Ron Boswell.
He said although the bureau's research had shown fatigue was having a major impact on the safety of the freight transport industry, it was not showing up in road toll statistics. He said fatigue was a factor in a large number of fatal crashes involving articulated trucks - but if another driver was involved then more often than not, it was the other driver who was found to be tired.
"While between 1992 and 1998, an estimated 33.5% of fatal articulated truck crashes involved driver fatigue compared with 15.1% of other fatal road crashes, the truck driver was the fatigued party in only one of every six fatal fatigue crashes involving an articulated truck and another vehicle," said Senator Boswell.
The bureau's research into driving habits in the transport industry was designed to follow up a similar investigation in 1991. The bureau wanted to discover what ten years of educational programs had done to increase awareness of fatigue and how the industry was now managing the problem.
What the bureau discovered was that awareness is no guarantee that fatigue was being better managed. It also found transport companies and drivers had divergent views when it came to handling the problem. While only a fifth of the 200 randomly selected transport managers thought fatigue was being badly managed, half the drivers surveyed believed there was a problem. Another aspect highlighted was that of non-employee drivers. Although half the companies surveyed hired them, few monitored their fatigue.
"In many cases fatigue management for non-employee drivers is likely to become by default, the responsibility of the individual driver," said the bureau. "This is a serious problem because effective fatigue management is unlikely to emerge without not only company cooperation but also active and formal company collaboration."
Overall the bureau found that companies are not doing all that can be done to improve fatigue management. Part of the problem is that companies lack understanding of the phenomenon.
"There was poor understanding among line haul managers of how driver fatigue develops, the key role played by time of day and the contribution of total burden of work, not just driving," said the bureau. "There needs to be greater understanding in the industry that the problem requires a more sophisticated approach than simply restricting hours of driving. Education and information for companies is likely to be a useful strategy to alert companies to the most appropriate practices and to overcome complacency about the problem."
