Commuting accidents of Spanish professional drivers: when occupational risk exceeds the workplace

Abstract

Background. Work traffic accidents are an issue both in Spain and all over the world, and specific evidence on commuting accidents is scarce. Even though both industrial safety and welfare have been improved during the last decades, the commuting accidents rate is growing worldwide. Purpose. The aim of this study was to examine and describe the characteristics of commuting traffic crashes of Spanish professional drivers. Materials and methods. For this cross-sectional study, commuting accidents suffered by drivers during the last 12 years were analyzed. Crossed and heatmap-based analyses were performed in order to establish patterns and driver-based differences among commuting crashes. Results. Commuting crashes’ features were found to be associated with demographic and job-related variables of professional drivers. Drivers’ gender, time slots (peak/off-peak hours) and the specific hour of the event explained different trends in accident severity and characteristics. Conclusions. The results of this study suggest that commuting accidents involving professional drivers differ in demographic and situational issues from general and on-duty professional drivers’ traffic crashes. Also, since in Spain commuting crashes are occupational accidents, more numerous and better actions should be taken in this regard, especially considering the association of professional drivers’ accidents with fatigue and shift-working.

Keywords:

• commuting accidents
• professional drivers
• driver features
• working conditions
• traffic crashes
• traffic injuries

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the FACTHUM-Lab and DATS research groups, Dr Ariel Ortiz for the technical advice provided to the study and Runa Falzolgher for the professional editing and proof-reading of the final version of the manuscript.