In New Zealand, heavy vehicle drivers carry log-books in which details of their driving hours must be recorded. It was decided to use this information to carry out a study on the risk of crash with respect to driving hours and other time intervals related to the drivers' working lives. In the study a case group of heavy vehicles involved in crashes (for which details of drivers' hours were known from their log-books) was compared with a control group of vehicles. The control group was selected by police going to the scenes of crashes on an anniversary of the crash, at the same time of day as the crash, and stopping a heavy vehicle. Where possible a vehicle was selected which was travelling in the same direction as the crash vehicle and which was of a similar configuration. Evidence was found of an increased risk of crash in those cases where driving hours since the driver's last compulsory 10 hour off-duty period (as recorded in the log book) exceeded about eight. There were no other significant differences between the two groups with respect to other time intervals related to driving habits. There was a significant difference between the age distribution ofthe crash and control drivers with the crash drivers generally younger. (A)
Abstract