An Engineering or Behavioural Approach? A Study into Employees’ Perceptions Regarding the Effectiveness of Occupational Road Safety Initiatives

Tamara Banks,Jeremy Davey,James Freeman

doi:10.3390/safety2010007

Tamara Banks, Jeremy Davey + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/safety2010007

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Abstract

Background and Aims: Considerable variation has been documented with fleet safety interventions’ abilities to create lasting behavioural change, and research has neglected to consider employees’ perceptions regarding the effectiveness of fleet interventions. This is a critical oversight as employees’ beliefs and acceptance levels (as well as the perceived organisational commitment to safety) can ultimately influence levels of effectiveness, and this study aimed to examine such perceptions in Australian fleet settings. Method: 679 employees sourced from four Australian organisations completed a safety climate questionnaire as well as provided perspectives about the effectiveness of 35 different safety initiatives. Results: Countermeasures that were perceived as most effective were a mix of human and engineering-based approaches: (a) purchasing safer vehicles; (b) investigating serious vehicle incidents; and (c) practical driver skills training. In contrast, least effective countermeasures were considered to be: (a) signing a promise card; (b) advertising a company’s phone number on the back of cars for complaints and compliments; and (c) communicating cost benefits of road safety to employees. No significant differences in employee perceptions were identified based on age, gender, employees’ self-reported crash involvement or employees’ self-reported traffic infringement history. Perceptions of safety climate were identified to be “moderate” but were not linked to self-reported crash or traffic infringement history. However, higher levels of safety climate were positively correlated with perceived effectiveness of some interventions. Conclusion: Taken together, employees believed occupational road safety risks could best be managed by the employer by implementing a combination of engineering and human resource initiatives to enhance road safety. This paper will further outline the key findings in regards to practice as well as provide direction for future research.

Highlights

Compared to general motorists, a relatively small body of research has focused on fleet drivers, individuals who drive company sponsored vehicles [1,2,3,4]
This has resulted in a growing view expressed both in industry and the corresponding road safety literature that there is a need to create a proactive “fleet safety culture” that has a strong foundation based on corporate policies, processes and procedures [12]
It is noteworthy that only “making vehicle safety features standard” reached a mean score above 4 indicating consensus that the approach was “effective.” there has yet to be a cumulative body of evidence that indicates the initiatives improves fleet safety

Summary

Introduction

A relatively small body of research has focused on fleet drivers, individuals who drive company sponsored vehicles [1,2,3,4] This may be considered surprising given that professional drivers have different driving demands, but they have higher exposure to risk [5] and are disproportionately represented in crash statistics. Occupational driving crashes are the most common form of injury or death in Australian workplaces [6], with 40% of all worker fatalities over the past 11 years (2003–2013) resulting from vehicle collisions [7] This effect is not confined to Australia, but rather, similar findings have been reported in the United. No significant differences in employee perceptions were identified based on age, gender, employees’ self-reported crash involvement or employees’

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Conclusion