Category: Motor Vehicle Safety

How to Make Safer, More Knowledgeable Drivers—On and Off the Job

This blog was originally posted on MyCarDoesWhat.org As an employer, what can you do to help workers understand and learn how to use safety features built into vehicles they drive for work—whether you provide these vehicles, or workers drive their own vehicles? Newer vehicles have advanced safety features most of us could not have imagined Read More >

Posted on by Stephanie Pratt, PhD and Rebecca Olsavsky, MS9 Comments

NIOSH Co-hosts Motor Vehicle Safety Webinar

  Earlier this month, the NIOSH Center for Motor Vehicle Safety, together with the Society for Advancement of Violence and Injury Research, hosted a webinar on Occupational Research in Motor Vehicle Safety.  The webinar grew out of interest generated at the National Occupational Injury Research Symposium,  and featured presentations on organizational-level approaches to improving work-related Read More >

Posted on by Rebecca Olsavsky, MS and Stephanie Pratt, PhD6 Comments

#PlanAhead for Drive Safely Work Week 2015

  How do you plan to celebrate Drive Safely Work Week? Don’t know? Haven’t thought about it yet? Well, you are in luck. This year, we are posting our blog in advance of the annual observance that encourages safe driving on and off the job (October 5-9, 2015) to give you plenty of time to Read More >

Posted on by Rebecca Olsavsky, MS and Stephanie Pratt, PhD 2 Comments

Motor Vehicle Safety and Law Enforcement Officers

In 2010, motor-vehicle-related events accounted for approximately two out of every five fatal work injuries in the United States [BLS 2011a]. Non-fatal motor-vehicle crashes can result in serious long-term injuries, permanent disabilities, and costly medical care. Notably absent from motor-vehicle research has been research addressing the safety of law enforcement officers who not only spend Read More >

Posted on by Hope M. Tiesman, PhD7 Comments

Drive Safely Work Week 2014

The Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) is calling on leaders of companies and organizations to emphasize road safety for all employees—not just those who drive company vehicles— as a core component of the organization’s safety culture. NIOSH supports this call to action. This year, the theme of Drive Safely Work Week (DSWW), NETS’s Read More >

Posted on by Stephanie Pratt, PhD and Kwame Boafo, MPH13 Comments

The National Tractor Safety Coalition: Taking a new systems-approach to a well-known problem

The agriculture industry is widely recognized for its high work-related fatal injury rates, which are estimated to be 20.2 deaths per 100,000 workers (compared to 3.2 per 100,000 workers for all workers).[i] Tractor overturns are the most frequent cause of farm fatalities, yet they can be readily addressed with the presence of a roll-bar and Read More >

Posted on by Julie Sorensen, PhD and Pam Tinc, MPH3 Comments

Semi-Autonomous Motor Vehicles: What Are the Implications for Work-related Road Safety?

Motor vehicles that are semi-autonomous – in other words, those that can operate for extended periods with little human input – are no longer just a product of science fiction. Semi-autonomous vehicles (Level 3 automation as defined below) are expected to reach the market within five years, and employers that buy or lease vehicles will Read More >

Posted on by Stephanie Pratt, PhD and Kwame Boafo, MPH 71 Comments

Reducing Taxicab Homicides

Taxicab drivers face one of the highest homicide rates of any occupation.  While rates of homicide have declined among the general working population (in 2010, 0.37 per 100,000 employed), they remain high in the taxicab industry (7.4 per 100,000 employed for the same year).  In the early 1990s, bullet-resistant partitions were the dominant safety equipment Read More >

Posted on by Cammie Chaumont Menéndez, PhD, MPH, MS44 Comments

Cost-effective Rollover Protective Structure (CROPS)

Despite a decades-long effort to raise awareness about the importance of roll over protective structures (ROPS) in preventing injury and death from tractor roll overs, tractor overturns continue to be the leading cause of occupational agricultural death in the United States. While all tractors produced since 1986 come with ROPS as standard equipment, farm tractors Read More >

Posted on by Paul R. Keane, MBA and Tony McKenzie, PhD15 Comments

El trabajo con vehículos todo-terreno

This blog post is also available in English Durante los últimos treinta años, los vehículos todo-terreno (VTT) se han vuelto cada vez más populares a nivel recreativo y se han convertido en una herramienta importante en el trabajo.   Con unos 11 millones en uso en el 2010, tanto en actividades laborales como recreativas, los VTT Read More >

Posted on by Jim Helmkamp, PhD, MS 27 Comments

All-terrain Vehicles and Work

Over the past 30 years, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) have grown increasingly popular recreationally and have become a valuable asset at work.   With an estimated 11 million in use in 2010 for both work and recreation, ATVs have become a common means of transportation. ATVs were first manufactured in the late 1960s as farm-to-town vehicles for Read More >

Posted on by Jim Helmkamp, PhD, MS12 Comments

Drive Safely Work Week

 A 45-year-old salesperson was killed in a motor vehicle crash while traveling to meet with clients.   A 26-year-old emergency medical technician died when the ambulance she was in was struck head-on by a pickup truck traveling more than 70 miles per hour in the wrong lane of a two-lane road.  A 42-year-old construction foreman lost Read More >

Posted on by Stephanie Pratt, PhD14 Comments

NIOSH Research on Work Schedules and Work-related Sleep Loss

Yesterday, in honor of National Sleep Awareness Week, we blogged about sleep and work and the risks to workers, employers, and the public when workers’ hours and shifts do not allow for adequate sleep.   This blog provides a brief overview of some of the work that NIOSH intramural scientists are carrying out to better understand Read More >

Posted on by Claire Caruso, PhD, RN; Luenda Charles, PhD; Tina Lawson, PhD; Akinori Nakata, PhD; Karl Sieber, PhD; Sudha Pandalai, MD, PhD; and Ted Hitchcock, PhD28 Comments

Sleep and Work

Sleep is a vital biological function and many Americans don’t get enough. To coincide with National Sleep Awareness Week, the new NIOSH blog post: Sleep and Work summarizes the risks to workers, employers and the public when long hours and irregular shifts required by many jobs do not allow workers to get adequate sleep. Read More >

Posted on by Claire Caruso, PhD, RN, and Roger R Rosa, PhD78 Comments

Construction Equipment Visibility

From 1995 through 2002, 844 fatal occupational injuries occurred at road construction sites. Educating drivers and road crew about vehicles' blind areas can help to reduce related injuries and fatalities.  Read More >

Posted on by David E. Fosbroke, MSF38 Comments

Cops and Cars

Police officer line-of-duty deaths have increased 40% from 2009 to 2010. Traffic-related incidents are the leading cause of death among our nation's law enforcement officers. Help NIOSH better understand police officer attitudes and beliefs about motor-vehicle safety practices by providing input.  Read More >

Posted on by Hope M. Tiesman, PhD, and Rebecca Heick, PhD43 Comments

Preventing Death and Injury in Tractor Overturns with Roll-Over Protective Structures

Tractor overturns are the leading cause of occupational agricultural deaths in the United States. Between 1992 and 2005, 1,412 workers on farms died from tractor overturns. The Roll-Over Protective Structure (ROPS) was developed to protect tractor operators from death and disability from these events by providing a protective zone for the operator in during a tractor overturn. Read More >

Posted on by Administrator33 Comments

Preventing Violence against Taxicab Drivers

Taxicab drivers face a very high risk of workplace homicide, even greater than those working in law enforcement and security. NIOSH is proposing an evaluation of the effectiveness of cameras in preventing violence against taxicab drivers.  Read More >

Posted on by Cammie Chaumont Menéndez, PhD, MPH, MS 29 Comments

References: Truck Driver Safety and Health

References on research into heart disease and mortality in truck drivers » Return to Dr. Sieber’s Truck Driver Safety and Health blog entry Read More >

Posted on by Administrator