If you’re a travelling sales representative, or an in-home carer, driving is a significant workplace safety risk.

Work fatalities in cars

Thirty percent of registered light motor vehicles (i.e. passenger vehicles, utility vans) in Australia are driven by workers that need to drive in order to carry out their job.

Unlike the road freight transport industry, a Chain of Responsibility does not exist for managing the safety of individuals that operate a light vehicle. Therefore, a systems thinking approach is required as the first step to better understand incidents and to develop feasible and practicable control measures.

The Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC), in collaboration with ISCRR and WorkSafe Victoria, aimed to develop a prototype systems thinking tool to review and revise control measures to prevent and manage light vehicle work-related driving incidents and near misses.

Pilot application of the tool was undertaken on three case studies of driving incidents, which identified risks and protective factors within and across all levels of the system. It also led to the development of new risk mitigation strategies.

The next stages of this project include:

  • Training in the application of the tool across industries and government agencies who operate a light vehicle fleet.
  • Evaluation of the tool in mitigating light vehicle safety risks.

The full research report is available to download from the ISCRR Clearinghouse.

 

  1. Driscoll T., Marsh S., McNoe B., Langley J., Stout N., Feyer A-M., & Williamson A. (2005). Comparison of fatalities from work related motor vehicle traffic incidents in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Injury Prevention, 11(5), 294-299
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