News / Trucking firms need to invest more in 'the human element' to cut road accidents

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The International Road Transport Union (IRU) has called for greater investment into the “human element” of road transport to reduce accidents – an astonishing 3,500 people die on the world’s roads every day.

Its recently released report on road safety investment reveals that, while commercial vehicles – including buses – are involved in less than 3% of road accidents globally,  85% of these are caused by human error: a quarter attributed to professional drivers and the remaining 75% to other road users.

However it also found that the majority of investment in safety by trucking companies is into vehicles and technology, rather than addressing human failures: 41% of investment “currently favours vehicle technology, with 31% directed towards human elements and 28% to operational safety measures”.

Secretary general Umberto de Pretto said: “The single biggest factor affecting road safety today is people. We need to push further investment in the human elements of road safety – from certification schemes and better driver monitoring through to general awareness campaigns to drive a stronger safety culture.”

The report concludes that there are four areas for industry, regulators and other road safety stakeholders to target: creating a stronger safety culture with the private and public sector sharing best practices; government-created business incentives, “so that the wider supply chain and societal benefits of improved safety are taken into account in operators’ cost-benefit analysis of purchase decisions; mandatory certification; and harmonising international safety standards.

And in a fascinating presentation at last week’s IRU Logistics Innovation Forum in London, James Shuker, managing director of AptiDrive, suggested more immediate improvements in safety could be achieved by applying psychometric techniques to driver safety training.

“Psychometrics are more commonly used for executive training, but we are focused on blue collar roles where there is actually a lot more risk, and if psychometrics is used properly the results far outweigh the small investment.”

Mr Shuker argued that there were some drivers who manage to go through their entire career without having an accident, despite the statistical probability that the more years a driver is on the road the more likely he or she is to be involved in an accident.

“For the accident-free drivers it is not a skill thing, and it can’t be down to luck, so it must be something to do with the way they think – such as their ability to pay attention for long periods of time,” he said.

He claimed lack of attention could be attributed as the cause for around half of all accidents caused by human error.

“But a short psychometric test can determine the attention span of a driver,” he said. “The crazy thing is that trucking companies are putting all this money into equipment that has a lifetime of two-to-three years and very little into a driver who will be working for decades.

“And sometimes there is no investment at all – a recent client of ours managed to get its insurance company to pay for trial tests,” he said.