The need to consider and improve occupational health and safety for drivers

Some references showed that:

According to Arturo Trejo Cerventes, General Director of the National Center for the Prevention of Accidents in Mexico, some 17,000 Mexicans die every year from road traffic accidents, making it the leading killer of children, adolescents and young people aged between 5 and 35; over 750,000 hospitalizations and road accidents are the primary cause of permanent disability. Traffic accidents have increased, with the official figures showing a rise of more than 45% in this decade, $10 billion of damage each year, including $4.5 bil-lion in medical care, $3 billion in physical damage and $3.5 billion in lost productivity and income due to the death of family members (1).

The findings of WA Evans (1985) showed that Hong Kong had higher accident rates than Japan, UK and the US, with pedestrians featuring particularly high among those affected. Most bus accidents occur at around 09:00 and 16:00. Mondays and Saturdays seem to have higher accident rates than other days of the week (2).

There are many factors as to why drivers are at a disadvantage with regard to working conditions: environmental factors (high temperatures in the summer, dust, noise, vibration, etc.); posture, long working hours, shift work, no breaks, etc. Drivers are required to concentrate on their work for longperiods, make fast decisions and be timely and accurate. They are not allowed to make many errors and it is difficult when unforeseen events occur. Pressure of work, time pressure, and psychological pressure are also occupational stress factors, contributing to an increased risk of traffic accidents.

According to GW Evans (1998), the work of an urban bus driver is a difficult task; psychosocial characteristics and a complex work environment with many risk factors for disease (3). Job stress reduces the quality of life of drivers. Staff shortages and poor roads also cause occupational stress in bus drivers (4).

The analysis showed that exposure to benzene and lead derived from automobile emissions affect human health in urban areas, including drivers (5). Bus drivers are ex-posed to high concentrations of carbon black in the downtown area (6). There are links between bus drivers being in more traffic jams and urinary catecholamines (7).

Tran Viet Nghi’s study (2005) surveyed 1045 bus drivers and noted that 97.8% of the drivers state that their work always requires observation; 88.7% stated that their work environment is not pleasant and 83.3% are at risk of accidents at work. The study also demonstrated the strain on the central nervous system of bus drivers through a simple reaction time test, CFF. (8)

Stress levels are increased by the bus driver’s working posture, working time and working conditions (9). Among 22 bus drivers who were victims of a violent assault, the rate of psychological trauma is 23% (10).

Of 211 drivers with an average working time of 15.2 years (88 bus drivers, 70 taxi drivers and 53 lorry drivers): the time from starting to work to when an accident occurred was significantly shorter for bus drivers than for taxi drivers and lorry drivers (11).

Of 69% of self-reported driving accidents, one third of these were caused by tiredness. The main cause of tiredness when driving is lack of sleep/insomnia (90%), drugs (78%), drinking alcohol the night be-fore (23%). Sixty-one percent of drivers work more than 12 hours without time off. Feeling tired while driving is also associated with many hours of driving (> 4 hours) (12).

Of the 175 bus drivers of a transport company in Tehran, the capital of Iran, there was a significant correlation between insomnia, drug history and their accident history. These results indicate a need to select drivers more carefully and pay closer attention to the treatment of sleep disorders (13).

According AU Jayatilleke (2009) working time and a low salary were risk factors for the district bus crash in Kandy, Sri Lanka (14). Accidents may also be related to truck drivers’ vision problems (15).

Knowledge and driving behaviour has been studied by many authors. P. Ifeoma Okafor (2013) studied the knowledge of bus drivers in Lagos, Nigeria and points out that 261 (64.1%) drivers believed that eyesight tests should be carried out before you obtain a driver’s licence and only 53.8% knew the minimum age at which a driver’s licence can be obtained. Only 1% of the drivers had full knowledge of the requirements for driving license. Some drivers had knowledge of road signs (59.0%) and a larger number were aware of the maximum speed limit (100%). The drivers, who had low levels of education and work experience, had low knowledge of safety (16).

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, found that there was a relationship between psychological stress and aggressive driving behaviour on the road and an unstable psychological state of the driver in traffic jams. Bad driving habits include: dangerous driving, including speeding, not using seatbelts and driving while using a mobile phone. The researchers then analysed 761 young drivers, aged 17 to 25 years old holding a driver’s licence. The results indicated that 8.5% of young people suffered from depression or stress (8).

In journal articles in the International Journal of Injury Prevention, Graduate student Scott-Parker showed that careless driv-ing behaviour creates psychological pressure and such drivers should receive assistance related to this behaviour (8).

The health of drivers is also studied by many researchers.

M Bovenzi (1992) (17) pointed out that bus drivers are at risk of back pain (234 urban bus drivers compared to 125 maintenance workers working in the same company). Back pain associated with increased vibration intensity and duration of exposure. In Denmark, the proportion of regular bus drivers with back pain is 57%. Bus drivers with many years of experience have higher rates of lower back pain (18).

There are a number of psychosocial factors related to lower back pain or neck pain, including continuous driving over long peri-ods of time, job level, social demands, high levels of job dissatisfaction and low support monitoring (19). Research shows that when drivers are suffering from exhaustion there is a relationship between health problems and abnormal driving behaviour (20). C. Laberge-Nadeau (1996) (15), noted that the rate of hypertension in bus drivers is higher than other drivers.

Bus drivers have high risk of coronary heart disease (21). Research on the 52 bus drivers, compared with 52 other male workers, showed that in relation to risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD), cholesterol, serum triglycerides and blood pressure are some of the higher risks of driving, more significant than coronary artery disease (22).

The incidence of hypertension and diabetes was 42.9% and 7%, respectively, among drivers (23).

Tran Viet Nghi (2005) examined drivers and found that 2.1% of bus drivers have mental health issues, 22.7% have cardiovascular disease, in which 13.6% were hypertensive (8).

Driving poses a risk of lung cancer, the highest risk is for drivers with over 10 years of time at the wheel (24). Short term research on taxi drivers and truck drivers in Stockholm County showed that there is a lung cancer risk among short-distance truck drivers. The risk is higher in large urban areas than in rural areas for all driving groups (25).

Currently in Vietnam, 54/63 provinces and cities use public passenger transport with 627 bus lines. In urban areas there are 499 lines, 127 inter province lines with over 8,000 vehicles (1,272 vehicles in Hanoi, whereas Ho Chi Minh City has 2,951 vehicles, the remaining 52 provinces have more than 3,000 vehicles). In 2011, Hanoi had transported more than 420 million passengers and Ho Chi Minh City had 358 million passengers on its transport system.

It is now necessary to review the management of working conditions and the health of bus drivers – this is only the first stage. The second stage involves improving drivers’ working conditions and health, thereby contributing to a reduction in traffic accidents.

(Source: Asian-Pacific Newsletter 2/2013)

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