World transport ministers
have a weak-knee approach to road safety
A fatal truck crash today in
Pennsylvania has highlighted the weak-knee approach of governments, transport
ministers and industry leaders to driver fatigue and its effect on road safety.
Semi driver, Steven Bernier,
50, of Reading, PA started work at 1:30 a.m. and fell asleep five hours later
at 6:30 a.m. His 18 wheeler slammed into a line of cars waiting at a red
traffic light, killing two people in separate vehicles and injuring nine
others. Bernier has been charged with two counts of homicide and nine counts of
aggravated assault, and other charges.
He will no doubt go to
prison for a very long time and, for the authorities, everything will be
forgotten and life will go on. But not for the victims or the truck driver.
They, and their families, will have to live with this tragedy for the rest of
their lives.
I like to compare road
safety with flying safety because flying and driving started at about the same
time, but they have a totally different stance on safety. In the early days of
motoring speed and traffic volumes were low and accidents were few. On the
other hand aviation started out badly and flying was about the most dangerous
thing a human being could engage in.
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| The accident scene and the truck driver |
A critical difference then,
and now, is that flying accidents are generally less survivable than road
accidents, but in spite of that aviation has achieved a safety record that
should be the envy of all road users and road safety campaigners. One may ask,
how did that happen? How did flying (not including private flying) become the
safest mode of transport ever devised, while road safety made negligible progress?
In a word, the answer lies in attitude. In
aviation, safety comes first in every consideration. This applies not just to
pilots, but to everyone involved in every aspect of aviation; aircraft
designers, regulators, trainers and training, weather conditions, maintenance
and servicing and repair, accident investigation and reporting. ‘She’ll be
right’ has no place in the air the way it does on the roads. The aviation world
understood early on that safety rules were vital for the survival pilots and
passengers, and for the survival of aviation itself.
Meanwhile, for over 100
years road safety has been given little more than lip service only. On two
factors alone the record is appalling. Seat belts were standard in all aircraft
almost 100 years ago while few cars had seat belts prior to 1970 and many
larger vehicles still don’t have them including many passenger buses. In some
situations the authorities still allow unrestrained, standing passengers on public
transport. That is reprehensible.
The second area where road
safety is seriously lacking is with accident investigation and reporting. For
at least the last 60 years all fatal flying accidents have been subject to thorough
investigation by specially trained experts. They then publish a public report
giving full details of the aircraft including manufacture, maintenance records,
hours flown and other relevant details; the pilot including licence and type
ratings, total flight time, hours on type, hours in previous three months and
previous incidents; details of the flight and weather conditions, circumstances
of the accident and examination of the wreckage; conclusions as to probable
cause(s) and recommendations for preventing similar accidents in the future.
Continued below . . . .
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Road accident investigation
by comparison is still primitive, and will do little if anything to make roads safer,
and seems to focus only on the possibility of prosecutions and helping
insurance companies settle claims. Indeed under existing law in most countries
investigations along the lines of aircraft accident investigation would be
impossible because of a lack of logbooks or data recording devices.
In aviation the emphasis is
on ongoing training and education. Everyone learns to fly with a qualified
instructor and undergoes regular re-checking. You can’t teach a friend or
family member how to fly. Meanwhile on the roads most people do learn to drive
with a friend of family member who will pass on their own bad habits and lack
of professionalism and there is no re-checking or ongoing training. Instead of
training and education, as in aviation, on the roads it is just a case of
policing, prosecuting and punishing, and it doesn't work.
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| Author Peter Blakeborough |
But to return to the tragedy
in Pennsylvania, drivers work inhumane hours in inhumane conditions for wages
that are a pittance. And all over the world governments simply don’t care. All
things considered the vast majority of professional drivers are safe drivers
and that can be verified by insurance statistics which show that in truck/car
collisions 70% of liability rests with car drivers and only 30% with truck
drivers. Truck drivers typically spend a big part of their long day avoiding
collisions with cars that are being driven inappropriately. However, there has
been no suggestion of another vehicle being responsible in Bernier’s case.
But I wonder what
circumstances in the preceding hours and days led this professional driver to
fall asleep at the wheel. He can legally be on duty and driving for 70 hours a
week while frequently having his starting and finishing times altered
substantially. A person working under those conditions may not even be aware
that he is fatigued. Unlike an airline pilot, he does not have a co-pilot with
dual controls or a rule requiring a rest period of at least the same duration
as the duty period preceding it. He is not restricted to a maximum of 100 hours
in a 28 day period, nor is he limited to an annual maximum of 900 hours, like
the airline pilot.
The rules of the road and
attitudes to safety need to change, but it is not something that one company or
employer, one country can do. The changes need to be led by the United Nations,
just as the International Civil Aviation Organization (an agency of the UN) has
led the way with air safety.
But the sad thing is that
most people will not be even remotely interested in reading posts like this. It
is just too easy to think, it won’t happen to me.
