The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is developing a heavy truck crash database for fatal and serious injury crashes in response to increased demand for truck safety data by governments, the National Road Transport Commission, relevant industry organisations and police services. A pilot of the database, conducted in late 2000, indicated that the collection processes could not meet all the data requirements of stakeholders. The gaps mainly related to technical details (eg. suspension type, brake system, etc) and contributory factors (eg. drug involvement and fatigue). However, many other details of a non-technical nature were able to be collected. Moreover, using an ATSB definition of fatigue, an estimate of possible fatigue-related crashes was also able to be calculated. An initial heavy truck crash data set for January-June 2000 is included in this report. Data for July-December 2000 have also been collected and are currently being processed, with a view to publishing the results in the near future. (Author/publisher)
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