Factors affecting truck driver behavior on a road safety context: A critical systematic review of the evidence

Abstract

Road traffic injuries and crashes are one of the major public concerns contributing to mortality and morbidity figures across the globe. Researchers estimated that around 90% of all causative factors for crashes are attributed to road users of which drivers are the principal controlling elements. Therefore, understanding complex human driver behavior and their possible violations or errors are necessary to control and prevent accident occurrence to a considerable extent. Studies on driver behavior of commercial vehicles such as trucks are scattered widely and scarcely explored hindering the possibility of road safety outcomes. This underscores the need to excavate and synthesize the past studies for an effective understanding of human factors causing truck crashes. In this paper, an attempt has been made to systematically review the pieces of literature and to identify the causative factors affecting truck driver behavior. The trend of studies shows a promising framework for improving truck driver safety on taking care of human factors influencing crashes. Most kinds of literature have cited unsafe driving behaviors as a predominant source of truck crashes. The outcomes of this research can be utilized by transportation firms and stakeholders for identifying the possible lags to develop pragmatic and possible effective preventive measures featuring truck driver safety.