Work related motor vehicle incident profiles: An analysis of costs and frequencies
Keywords: Work Related Road Safety
ARSRPE
Submission Date: 2005
Abstract
Work related road safety research is scarce. Due to an increasing awareness of workplace health and safety issues and the impact of fleet safety on business effectiveness, the current demand for fleet safety information has grown. To assist organisations in managing their fleets in an informed manner, this study analysed the frequency and severity of various types of motor vehicle incidents in a large Australian fleet of greater than 10,000 vehicles. Data pertaining to motor vehicle incidents that occurred between 1999 and 2003 was sourced from archival records of property damage, workers compensation and third party claims. The data includes 321 motor vehicle incidents that occurred during this period where a property damage claim was filed in relation to the researched fleet that could be matched with either a workers compensation claim or compulsory third party (CTP) claim. Therefore all estimates in this paper refer to average injury crashes. It was observed that incident frequency and severity varied substantially between different incident characteristics. This paper provides current data which could be utilised to guide judgements of the cost effectiveness of proposed interventions both within the fleet and broader road safety community. For example, most road safety programs are aimed at younger drivers. This study found that 60 percent of the drivers involved in an incident were between the ages of 31 and 50 years, and that drivers who were between the ages of 41 and 50 years had the highest average total incident cost. This would suggest that traditional programs may need to be modified to target this more mature audience.