Heavy Vehicle Drivers Research Articles

Control of a multiple-DOF vehicle seat suspension with roll and vertical vibration

In this paper, the control of roll vibration and vertical vibration of a seat suspension caused by uneven road under both sides of tyres is studied. The heavy duty vehicles are generally working under severe conditions, where the uneven road can cause roll vibration and vertical vibration of the vehicle body and can have an effect on seat suspension. The conventional single-degree of freedom (single-DOF) seat suspension can only isolate the vertical vibration while the roll vibration will be totally transferred to the driver's body. The high magnitude of driver body's lateral acceleration caused by roll vibration will influence drivers' health and have a negative effect on ride comfort. A two-layer multiple-DOF active seat suspension, which has a z-axis DOF in the bottom layer and a roll DOF in the top layer, is proposed in this paper. A non-singular terminal sliding controller is designed to control the top-layer to reduce the lateral acceleration and roll acceleration by tracking a desired roll angle. An H∞ controller with disturbance compensation is applied to control the bottom-layer for vertical vibration isolation. Both controllers use the variables which can be measured or estimated in the practical application as feedback signals. Two inertial measurement units (IMUs) MPU9250 are used in order to estimate the rotary angles of the top and base platforms of the two-layer multiple-DOF active seat suspension. The effectiveness of the seat suspension and control method is validated by both simulations and experiments. A single-DOF active seat suspension and a well-tuned conventional passive one are applied for comparison. Based on ISO 2631, the vibration total value of frequency weighted root mean square (FW-RMS) acceleration of the multiple-DOF active seat surface has 29.8% and 23.6% reductions for evaluating its influence on health and ride comfort, respectively, when compared with the single-DOF active one. The proposed vibration isolation method can effectively reduce the whole body vibration (WBV) of heavy duty vehicle drivers, and it shows high potential for practical application.

An Integrative Approach to Study Drivers Perceived Stress on Aberrant Driving Behaviour: The Mediation Role of Driver Fatigue

Robust scientific evidence exists for occupational group of heavy vehicle drivers in oil and gas transport who are infected with acute fatigue. Numerous recent studies relate driver’s perceived stress and fatigue with dangerous driving behaviours during performance of delivery duties. This study investigates the association between driver’s perceived stress on aberrant driving behaviour and determines fatigue to be the mediation factor. Sample size of 378 male drivers from 10 oil and gas transport companies was selected that operate in peninsular west and east Malaysia, who answered adapted version of Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) in the conducted survey. Structural Equation Model (SEM) was applied that proved aberrant driving behaviours of heavy vehicle drivers can be predicted through driver’s perceived stress and fatigue. Fatigue is a mechanism that mediates the association amongst driver perceived stress and aberrant driving behaviours. In conclusion, the parameter of fatigue mediates between the perceived stress which is an appropriate prediction tool and consequent aberrant driving behaviour of heavy vehicle drivers. This study suggests abatement in individual stress and recommends fatigue management to alter risky and aberrant driving behaviours in order to encourage and give impetus to safe driving culture in oil and gas transportation sector in Malaysia.

Predicting fruit and vegetable consumption in long-haul heavy goods vehicle drivers: Application of a multi-theory, dual-phase model and the contribution of past behaviour

Fruit and vegetable intake is insufficient in industrialized nations and long-haul heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers are considered a particularly at-risk group. The aim of the current study was to test the effectiveness of a multi-theory, dual-phase model to predict fruit and vegetable consumption in Australian long-haul HGV drivers. A secondary aim was to examine the effect of past fruit and vegetable consumption on model paths. A prospective design with two waves of data collection spaced one week apart was adopted. Long-haul HGV drivers (N = 212) completed an initial survey containing theory-based measures of motivation (autonomous motivation, intention), social cognition (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control), and volition (action planning, coping planning) for fruit and vegetable consumption. One week later, participants (n = 84) completed a self-report measure of fruit and vegetable intake over the previous week. A structural equation model revealed that autonomous motivation predicted intentions, mediated through attitudes and perceived behavioural control. It further revealed that perceived behavioural control, action planning, and intentions predicted fruit and vegetable intake, whereby the intention-behaviour relationship was moderated by coping planning. Inclusion of past behaviour attenuated the effects of these variables. The model identified the relative contribution of motivation, social cognition, and volitional components in predicting fruit and vegetable intake of HGV drivers. Consistent with previous research, inclusion of past fruit and vegetable consumption led to an attenuation of model effects, particularly the intention-behaviour relationship. Further investigation is needed to determine which elements of past behaviour exert most influence on future action.

Anatomical Parameters of the Acetabulum in Heavy Vehicle Operators

AbstractIt has been suggested that long-term exposure by heavy vehicle operators to whole-body vibration (WBV) may be related to an increased risk of pathological changes in the anatomical parameters of the hip. The aim of this study was to explore the difference in anatomical parameters of acetabulum in drivers of heavy vehicles (experimental group; n=60) and subjects who have not been exposed to WBV (control group; n=60). The anteroposterior radiographic view of the hips was used to measure the following parameters: the vertical centre edge (VCE), the ‘horizontal toit externe’ angle (HTE), the neck shaft angle (NSA) and the acetabular depth (AD). Compared with the control group, the mean VCE angle values and AD were signifi cantly lower, while the average HTE and NSA values were signifi cantly higher in the experimental group. This study supports the hypothesis that exposure to whole-body vibration during operation of a vehicle causes an increased risk of acetabular dysplasia.

Proposing a Quick Assessment Tool for Heavy Vehicle Commercial Drivers’ Fatigue in Oil and Gas Industry of Malaysia

Heavy vehicle commercial drivers possess a vibrant role in the transportation industry. Driver’s fatigue is one of the most important concerns for the transportation business. The extant literature review indicated that many factors are contributing to driver’s fatigue but still, there is a dire need to explore other factors that can influence heavy vehicle driver’s fatigue in the case of Malaysian Oil and Gas Industry. Hence, the study aims to identify the factors contributing to the heavy vehicle driver’s fatigue and develop a quick assessment tool for this Industry. A mix method approach will be used for data collection. We aim to select heavy vehicle drivers as unit of analysis. The findings of the study will contribute to heavy vehicle driver’s fatigue and further enhance the fatigue literature. Identified indicators will be further used to develop a quick assessment tool for the heavy vehicle commercial driver’s fatigue. © 2017 American Scientific Publishers. All rights reserved.

Health Care Issues: A Risk for Fatal Crashes Amongst Heavy Vehicle Drivers in Oil and Gas Industry

The oil and gas industry has an active role in the development of Malaysian economy. Oil and gas industry outpouring of products all depends on heavy vehicles transportation. The oil and gas transportation is a very sensitive issue for heavy vehicle drivers from centralized plants to the end users. According to the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS), there are record fatalities and accidents among heavy vehicle drivers. This is a major health care issue for this industry. This study aims at assessing the health care issues such as; obesity, seat interface and back pain problems, on demographic characteristics; age, education and race among oil and gas truck drivers in Malaysia. The study based on in-depth literature review to find out the drivers health care issues that leads to fatal crashes. According to the best knowledge of the researcher, very rare studies have found out the health care's issues in context of Malaysian oil and gas Industry. This study also put emphasis on literature on safety training interventions in abating fatal crashes among truck drivers. Copyright © 2017 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.

Cross-sectional surveillance study to phenotype lorry drivers’ sedentary behaviours, physical activity and cardio-metabolic health

ObjectivesElevated risk factors for a number of chronic diseases have been identified in lorry drivers. Unhealthy lifestyle behaviours such as a lack of physical activity (PA) and high levels of...

Roadway classifications and the accident injury severities of heavy-vehicle drivers

Previous heavy-vehicle (a truck with a gross vehicle weight rating greater than 10,000 pounds) injury severity studies have disaggregated data by factors such as urban/rural and time-of-day, yet a focus on contributing factors by roadway classification is lacking. Taking this into consideration, the current study aims to extend traditional heavy-vehicle driver injury severity analyses, through the application of a mixed logit modeling framework, by determining statistically significant injury severity contributing factors by roadway classification. In the course of identifying statistically significant injury severity factors, a parameter transferability test is conducted to determine if roadway classifications need to be considered separately for safety analyses. Empirical results show that roadway classifications need be modeled separately with a high level of confidence, as the estimated parameters are statistically different by classification based on corresponding chi-square statistics and degrees of freedom. The majority of significant contributing factors are exclusive to a specific road classification, however, two factors were found to impact injury severity regardless of classification while some factors were significant for two classifications. Findings from this study can prompt future work to focus on injury severity, as well as other safety measures, by roadway classification and/or other subpopulations within crash datasets.

Health status assessment of workers during construction phase of highway rehabilitation projects around lahore, Pakistan.

The study focused on assessment of the health status of workers during construction phase of highway rehabilitation projects at six selected sites of N5 around Lahore, including Kala Shah Kaku, Muridke, Kamuki, Bhaipheru, Pattoki, and Okara. The study was based on multi-methods approach involving hazard identification through survey and checklist as well as a questionnaire for health status assessment and measurements of health parameters including peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) and audiometric screening of 300 subjects. The study revealed non-congenial working conditions at the sites. Noise, vibrations, dust, asphalt fumes, poor work postures, and injuries were found to be major health hazards. PEFR of most of the workers was found to be significantly lower than the reference value. Average PEFR±SEM values were 187±5.1 l/min, 178±4.3 l/min, and 266±5.3 l/min in ground preparation workers, asphalt workers, and heavy vehicle drivers, respectively. The highest rate (29%) of hearing loss was recorded among heavy vehicle drivers. Musculoskeletal problems were found to be more common among ground preparation workers. Data revealed unsatisfactory health status of most of the workers. Direct relationship between health outcomes and the type of construction activities were observed. The current study focuses on the importance of including occupational health and safety plan in the execution phase of every developmental project that involves construction activities.

Measuring driving workload of heavy vehicles at roundabouts

Correctly designed roundabouts proved to have positive safety and functional performances. However, they are also affected by peculiar disadvantages. In particular, they are difficult to manoeuvre, especially for heavy vehicle drivers. Despite these concerns, there are currently no driving workload metrics devoted to roundabouts.A novel methodological approach is proposed for trying to quantify workload impinging on heavy vehicle drivers when manoeuvring through complex at-grade intersections. Proper acquisition of input data constitutes the starting point for future research about ascertainment of workload for these particular road scenarios. The described procedure enables recording steering wheel angles performed by a driver when manoeuvring an articulated lorry through a complex at-grade intersection. A field trial was carried out for verifying the practical feasibility of proposed method in capturing driver’s steering behaviour. Dynamic data acquired via global navigation satellite system instrumentation were related to actual driver’s steering wheel behaviour captured by camera frames. As a complement to the experiment, selected steering behaviour metrics were calculated. Steering Entropy attributed a high difficulty level to the manoeuvres performed through the roundabout, whereas High Frequency Component and Steering Reversal Rate showed intensity and occurrences of driver’s corrections needed for controlling position of the semitrailer at the ring. It appears that even a single roundabout may represent an arduous task for drivers. The study concludes with recommendations for further research about workload imposed by roundabouts to heavy vehicle drivers, with special attention to successions of closely spaced roundabouts.

Exposure to whole body vibration in heavy mine vehicle drivers and its association with upper limbs musculoskeletal disorders

Background: Vibration as one of the harmful physical factors is relatively present in a wide range of jobs. Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are among the most prevailing complaints of workers encountering occupational factors for example vibration. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate vibration and its association with the MSDs in upper limbs of heavy mine vehicles drivers. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted, on heavy mine vehicles of GolGohar Sirjan Centre, Sirjan, Iran. In general, 288 drivers with 92 vehicles were working at the mine site. SVAN958 vibration meters and the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire were used to measure whole body vibration and upper limb MSDs, respectively. Finally, the data were analysed using SPSS. Results: The highest average equilibrated acceleration was in graders (2.179 m/s2 ) and drills had the lowest average acceleration (0.479 m/s2 ). Prevalence of MSDs within past 12 months showed a significant difference in the neck (P = 0.044) and elbow (P = 0.023) between case and control group. The whole body vibration variable was associated with MSDs in the neck (P = 0.020) and wrist/hands (P = 0.030), and with increase in vibration the MSDs showed a 59% increase in neck and 72% in wrist/hands. In multivariate analysis, the whole body vibration variable had a significant relation with MSDs in wrist/hand (P = 0.027) and caused an 83% increase in the risk of MSDs per each unit in wrist/hand. Conclusions: The prevalence of disorders in studies with short duration is probably not quite visible; however, by increasing the working experience with these vehicles which have higher vibration than standard rates, the chance of developing MSDs increases.

Examining driver injury severity outcomes in rural non-interstate roadway crashes using a hierarchical ordered logit model

Rural non-interstate crashes induce a significant amount of severe injuries and fatalities. Examination of such injury patterns and the associated contributing factors is of practical importance. Taking into account the ordinal nature of injury severity levels and the hierarchical feature of crash data, this study employs a hierarchical ordered logit model to examine the significant factors in predicting driver injury severities in rural non-interstate crashes based on two-year New Mexico crash records. Bayesian inference is utilized in model estimation procedure and 95% Bayesian Credible Interval (BCI) is applied to testing variable significance. An ordinary ordered logit model omitting the between-crash variance effect is evaluated as well for model performance comparison. Results indicate that the model employed in this study outperforms ordinary ordered logit model in model fit and parameter estimation. Variables regarding crash features, environment conditions, and driver and vehicle characteristics are found to have significant influence on the predictions of driver injury severities in rural non-interstate crashes. Factors such as road segments far from intersection, wet road surface condition, collision with animals, heavy vehicle drivers, male drivers and driver seatbelt used tend to induce less severe driver injury outcomes than the factors such as multiple-vehicle crashes, severe vehicle damage in a crash, motorcyclists, females, senior drivers, driver with alcohol or drug impairment, and other major collision types. Research limitations regarding crash data and model assumptions are also discussed. Overall, this research provides reasonable results and insight in developing effective road safety measures for crash injury severity reduction and prevention.

Too individualistic for safety culture? Non-traffic related work safety among heavy goods vehicle drivers

IntroductionThis article reports on a study of non-traffic related work safety among drivers of heavy goods vehicles in Denmark. In the heavy goods vehicle transport (HGV) sector only 6.4% of workplace accidents involving drivers are traffic related. HGV work is characterised by solitary work, as drivers tend to work at a physical distance from their own company and their working environment is also influenced by the working environment of other companies e.g. the places where they deliver goods. This study focuses on an analysis of HGV drivers’ and managers’ differentiated understandings of risk and safety and its management within an organisational context. The situational focus involves viewing HGV drivers’ working environment as a part of the organisational structure as well as of other social relationships. An understanding of safety culture as practice is applied with the view of identifying values and attitudes as well as organisational and technical aspects in relation to how individualist or collectivist understandings of risk and safety influence the working environment in HGVs. MethodThe study applied a mixed methods approach and in this article the qualitative interviews conducted with drivers and managers is the primary data source. ResultsThis study suggests a widespread understanding of drivers as being individually oriented in their work, from drivers and management alike. However, the study also demonstrates that, in conducting their work, the drivers are actually interdependent, and share knowledge frequently, albeit informally. The organisational structure of the company shapes their individual attitudes towards safety but they also report being dependent on relationships with, and information from, their fellow colleagues, former colleagues and friends who shape their understandings and attitudes towards hazards and safety practices. The analysis points to risk-taking and unsafe practices as prevalent among HGV drivers, who often refer to risk as trivial and the management of such risks as one’s own responsibility. Knowledge of how to manage risks in everyday practice is shown to be principally related to personal experiences but also to the good advice and examples of fellow drivers. ConclusionsThe analysis points to interdependent and collectivist practices among HGV drivers even though they are perceived as being individualistically oriented when it comes to safety. Therefore, non-traffic related safety practices, in this case the loading and unloading of vehicles, occur in the grey zone of organisational safety management. Despite the fact that organisational safety initiatives are initiated, the management sees limited possibilities for enforcing them and hence safety practice is often left to the individual driver. Practical applicationsA safety culture perspective might enhance work safety among HGV drivers if we are able to understand workplace culture in a pluralistic way. Collectivist practice among the drivers can be utilised in order to improve knowledge sharing and situational safety practices. The informal communication identified among the drivers might offer a new model for safety initiatives based on more collectivist, albeit informal, safety culture practices on behalf of HGV companies.

Fatality rate of pedestrians and fatal crash involvement rate of drivers in pedestrian crashes: a case study of Iran

The aim of this study was to uncover patterns of pedestrian crashes. In the first stage, 34,178 pedestrian-involved crashes occurred in Iran during a four-year period were grouped into homogeneous clusters using a clustering analysis. Next, some in-cluster and inter-cluster crash patterns were analysed. The clustering analysis yielded six pedestrian crash groups. Car/van/pickup crashes on rural roads as well as heavy vehicle crashes were found to be less frequent but more likely to be fatal compared to other crash clusters. In addition, after controlling for crash frequency in each cluster, it was found that the fatality rate of each pedestrian age group as well as the fatal crash involvement rate of each driver age group varies across the six clusters. Results of present study has some policy implications including, promoting pedestrian safety training sessions for heavy vehicle drivers, imposing limitations over elderly heavy vehicle drivers, reinforcing penalties toward under 19 drivers and motorcyclists. In addition, road safety campaigns in rural areas may be promoted to inform people about the higher fatality rate of pedestrians on rural roads. The crash patterns uncovered in this study might also be useful for prioritizing future pedestrian safety research areas.

Integration of heuristic and statistical methods for estimation of cyclist injury severity

The number of crashes that involve bicycles and result in severe injuries has increased every year in the Republic of Korea, though bicycling is a promising alternative transportation mode that can help address transportation emission problems. Correspondingly, this study intends to quantitatively examine the impacts of contributing factors on the cyclist injury severity levels and to provide meaningful insight into prioritizing and specifying strategies for improving cyclist safety. To this end, a decision tree and ordered probit regression were integrated in this study. The findings showed that heavy vehicle use and cyclist age should be preferentially considered when implementing cyclist safety improvement strategies: targeting young heavy-vehicle drivers or cyclists, driver education regarding proper curve maneuvering and a law enforcement prohibition of speeding are suggested, and ITS-based traffic management system and road facilities would help enhance light vehicle driver visibility and senior cyclist alertness, particularly in horizontally curving road sections. These data-driven results could quantitatively support the policy makers or practitioners making decisions about prioritizing cyclist safety improvement strategy implementations and further specifying such strategies.

Determinants of the occupational environment and heavy vehicle crashes in Western Australia: A case–control study

ObjectiveTo determine the association between a heavy vehicle driver's work environment, including fatigue-related characteristics, and the risk of a crash in Western Australia. MethodsThis case–control study included 100 long-haul heavy vehicle drivers who were involved in a police-reported crash in WA and 100 long-haul heavy vehicle drivers recruited from WA truck stops, who were not involved in a crash in the previous 12 months. Driver demographics and driving details, work environment, vehicle and sleep-related characteristics were obtained using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Drivers were tested for obstructive sleep apnoea using an overnight diagnostic device. Conditional multiple logistic regression analysis was undertaken to determine work environment-related factors associated with crash involvement. ResultsAfter accounting for potential confounders, driving a heavy vehicle with an empty load was associated with almost a three-fold increased crash risk compared to carrying general freight (adjusted OR: 2.93, 95% CI: 1.17–7.34). Driving a rigid heavy vehicle was associated with a four-fold increased risk of crashing compared to articulated heavy vehicles (adjusted OR: 4.08, 95% CI: 1.13–14.68). The risk of crashing was almost five times higher when driving more than 50% of the trip between midnight and 5.59am (adjusted OR: 4.86, 95% CI: 1.47–16.07). Furthermore, the risk of crashing significantly increased if the time since the last break on the index trip was greater than 2h (adjusted OR: 2.18, 95% CI: 1.14–4.17). Drivers with more than 10 years driving experience were 52% less likely to be involved in a crash (adjusted OR: 0.48, 95% CI: 0.23–0.99). ConclusionThe results provide support for an association between a driver's work environment, fatigue-related factors, and the risk of heavy vehicle crash involvement. Greater attention needs to be paid to the creation of a safer work environment for long distance heavy vehicle drivers.

Data linkage: An untapped resource for reducing serious traffic injuries in fast developing countries.

Reliable high quality traffic safety data has been essential for monitoring, developing and evaluating strategies to reduce the burden of injuries from traffic injuries. Information is often available in many different sources including police reports, ambulance/emergency medical service (EMS) run data, emergency department(ED) and hospital data, and mortality data from death certificates or medical examiner/coroner systems. However while each of these data systems has their own strengths and weakness, none can provide a comprehensive picture of traffic related injuries. Hospital trauma center records for example have extensive information on injuries and related medical problems but lack details on the mechanism of injury and crash and roadway characteristics. Often medical data cannot even distinguish drivers from pedestrians. Police or insurance crash reports on the other hand have considerable detail on the crash and circumstances surrounding it but have very poor data on the actual injuries sustained or their severity. This impedes targeting of prevention strategies towards serious injuries and fatalities. This presentation will use examples from current work on data linkage to demonstrate the value of linking traffic record data and explore how this approach can greatly advance traffic medicine and road safety in fast developing countries. In the United States linkage of crash data and medical data has been important for many traffic safety programs. One example is Maryland’s Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES) that uses probabilistic methodology to link police crash records to injury outcome records. CODES was established in an effort to improve highway safety through the use of linked motor vehicle crash data collected from police, EMS, hospitals (emergency department or inpatient admissions), and death certificates. This linked data have been used for a variety of statewide studies such as of injured motorcyclists, effectiveness of seat belts at preventing injuries, studies of older drivers, an analysis of mismatch collisions, geographic analysis of pedestrian injuries, patterns of injury in frontal collisions, costs and consequences of lower extremity injuries, the safety of newer vehicles, and the impact of casino gambling on alcohol-related crashes. A new project seeks to overcome the serious lack of reliable routine data on drug involvement in fatal crashes by linking detailed toxicology data from medical examiners with the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) in a sentinel group of states. Similar data linkage is also used in other countries such as a New Zealand study estimating underreporting of serious injuries by police reports. An Australian study noted that workers compensation datasets can identify most serious cases of occupational traffic injuries but lack valuable information on the circumstances and risk factors contributing to work-related crashes. Through linkage to police crash reports the study was able to identify high risk groups such as heavy vehicle drivers and the role played by fatigue and speeding. Many fast developing countries also have useful crash reports either from police or insurance reports. However only through linkage with medical data can their full potential for reducing the burden of serous traffic injuries be realized?

Road safety and traffic medicine in Iran: Achievements and challenges

Road traffic injuries found to be the second rank of Years of Life Lost (YLL) and third rank of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) in Iran based on Global Burden of Disease 2010. The number of annual fatalities, which had been on the rise for several decades, reached to the maximum number of over 27500 deaths in 2005. The number decreased to 23000 in 2010 and less than 18000 in 2013. The reduction in number of deaths happened despite a four-fold increase in number of motor vehicles. Some of the interventions that might be contributing to this achievement include the following: a) the new traffic law passed in 2010 that replaced the previous one dating back to 1968. Heavier penalties for major offences like: speeding, driving under the influence and dangerous driving are considered in the new law; b) stricter law enforcement by traffic polices(1); c) mass media campaign for traffic injury prevention (1); d) using fixed speed camera systems and laser speed guns; e) universal coverage of hospital treatment costs for all traffic injuries by Ministry of Health and Medical Education(2); and f) graduated driving license. On the other side, there are areas that need to be improved, including: a) driving behavior of both public and private drivers; b) driving under influence of drugs specially among public vehicle drivers (3,4) c) motorcycle riding behavior with special emphasis on helmet use (5); d) medical and psychological fitness to drive examinations; e) vehicle safety specifically for cars manufactured within the country; f) transportation engineering with emphasis on expansion of railroads and safe highways.

The challenges of driving licenses in Saudi Arabia

The losses caused by traffic accidents constitutes a large socio-economic problem for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and has led to an in-depth study of the driver, which is the major factor in the cause of traffic accidents in any region of the world. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's booming economy has resulted in the employment of large numbers of immigrants who work as professional drivers in Saudi Arabia, who come from different cultural and social environments which contributes to an increase in the human factor as the major cause of traffic crashes. This paper summarizes a national study conducted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia of 2074 traffic crashes during the year 2011. This study also included interviews of 1067 trainees at driving schools in the same period. The study has shown that the human factor constitutes 76% of the causes of crashes in the study sample and it has also confirmed the increased crash risk for young Saudi drivers when compared to older age groups, it also showed a higher crash involvement of non-Saudi nationals over the age of 30 years. This study concluded that the number of professional drivers involved in traffic crashes from foreign nationalities is higher than the Saudis and Arab drivers, and it also shows that there is an increasing number of non-professional Saudi and Arab drivers involved in traffic crashes when compared with other nationalities. The study also indicated that there was a greater than expected rate of traffic accidents rate involving heavy vehicle drivers when compared to drivers of private vehicles. There is also a higher rate of injury accidents involving drivers of government vehicles than other professional drivers. The study also indicates that drivers of private company and government vehicles are causing more crashes than family drivers and taxi drivers. The study encourages professional drivers to learn and understand the basics of the Arabic language or English, it also recommends that the professional drivers to reassess their driving and health fitness on a regular basis and provide them with training and cultural courses that suit them and more frequent for those who are older than 30 years. The study also recommended the need to increase the standard of training programs in driving schools through utilizing visual media including video and films for the effective delivery of information to trainees of many different nationalities and culturally diverse backgrounds.

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome among Iranian occupational drivers

AimsCompared with other members of a society, drivers are under more periodic and constant surveillance due mainly to this fact that their type of work requires them to spend most of their times in a sedentarily position. The recent survey had done to evaluate the prevalence of Met Syn among professional drivers in northeast area of Iran. Materials and methodsTo evaluate the prevalence of Met Syn among long-haul drivers, 1018 male drivers were studied. Definition of Met Syn was based on ATP III, IDF and AHA. The statistical tests were composed of chi-square and independent t tests. Results and conclusionThe participants’ mean age was 42.17±10.65 years. The prevalence of Met Syn according to ATP III, IDF and AHA criteria was 26.1%, 35.2% and 31.6% respectively. 6.6% of drivers were impaired fasting glucose. The drivers with the bus, minibus, taxi formed the greatest number of smokers (82.9%) among all drivers (p=0.023). The average of body mass index (BMI) was 26.2±4.06. The most prevalence of Mets according to IDF criteria were observed in drivers of heavy vehicles and also the ones of passenger vehicles, with 36.7% and 43.9% respectively. Based on high prevalence of Met Syn and other risk factors in this study, and considering these factors, should be more careful about this point. It is recommended to control risk factors such as, control of high BMI and TG, LDL, waist circumfernce, education.