Exposure to unsafe mobility: Traveling in the cargo area of pickup trucks in three Mexican cities

Abstract

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of pickup trucks transporting people in the cargo area and to identify factors associated to this behavior in three Mexican cities.

Methods: Eight rounds of roadside observations of randomly selected pickup trucks were conducted from August 2012 to November 2014 in three Mexican cities: Guadalajara-Zapopan, León and Cuernavaca.

Results: Overall, 4.03% of the 4,611 pickup trucks observed were transporting people in the cargo area (95% CI: 3.48 - 4.64%). This implies that a total of 427 passengers were traveling unsafely in the cargo area of pickup trucks; of all them 22.01% were children and 82.20% were male. Prevalence of exposure to this risky behavior was higher in León (5.77%, 95% CI: 4.73 - 6.97%) than in Cuernavaca (3.73%, 95% CI: 2.49 - 5.35%) and Guadalajara-Zapopan (2.70%, 95% CI: 2.05 - 3.48%). According to this data, exposure to this risk factor has decreased in time. Male drivers, not using seatbelt correctly carried passengers in the cargo area more frequently.

Conclusions: Results support the importance of improving and enforcing current legislation and evaluating strategies directed to prevent exposure to this risky behavior with the potential of contributing to lowering the high burden that road traffic injuries imposed in Mexican public health.

Keywords:

• Traffic accidents
• road safety
• Mexico

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers of this manuscript as their comments and suggestions helped us improve our work. We thank other members of the observation team for their committed and hard work (Francisco R. Mojarro-Íñiguez, Lourdes Gómez-García). We also would like to give special thanks to Elisa Hidalgo-Solórzano for her technical advice. Preliminary data of round 5 was presented at the “XV Congreso de Investigación en Salud Pública” [XV Public Health Research Meeting] organized by the National Institute of Public Health in Cuernavaca Mexico, during 2013.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, RPN. The data are not publicly available due to contractual restrictions.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Bloomberg Philanthropies under the Global Road Safety Program implemented in Mexico from 2010 to 2014.