Influence of occupational risk factors for road traffic crashes among professional drivers: systematic review

Abstract

This systematic review focuses on factors associated with occupational road crashes among professional drivers of commercial vehicles, e.g. trucks, buses and taxis. PubMed, MEDLINE and Google Scholar were searched, and quality assessment followed guidelines developed by the British Sociological Association medical sociological group. Sixty-six cross-sectional studies and one cohort study were included, of which 18, 45 and 3 studies were categorised as high-, moderate- and low-quality studies, respectively. Twenty-seven significant risk factors for road crashes were divided into six domains: (1) organisational, (2) individual driver characteristics, (3) qualifications, (4) driver conditions, (5) driving behaviour, and (6) external. The most frequently investigated factors were age (individual driver characteristics domain), sleepiness and substance use (driver conditions), driving duration and time of driving (organisational). More recently studied risk factors were management support (organisational), years of experience (qualifications), health parameters (driver conditions), vehicle speed and distracting activities, e.g. use of phone or navigation tools while driving (driving behaviour). The review identified overall risk factor domains and occupation-specific risk factors suitable for targeting and prioritising organisational preventive safety efforts. To obtain a more in-depth understanding of the antecedents of road crashes, future prospective studies are encouraged that evaluate preventive strategies for occupational road crashes.