Highway fatalities accounted for 1 in every 5 of the 6,210 job-related deaths during 1995, and were the leading cause of fatal work injuries. This article summarises the characteristics of the 1,329 workers who were fatally injured in highway traffic incidents, the occupations and industries in which they worked, and the types of highway incidents responsible. About half of the highway fatalities resulted from collisions between two or more vehicles. (See table 1) One fifth of the fatalities resulted from a crash with an object other than a vehicle, such as a tree, bridge abutments, or utility pole, and another fifth occurred when the vehicle jackknifed or overturned. Patterns varied somewhat according to the type of vehicle involved. Collisions with other vehicles, crashes with objects on the side of the road, and jackknifing and overturning contributed about equally (roughly 30 percent) to the 359 deaths of those riding in tractor trailers. For workers killed while riding in other types of highway vehicles, collisions between vehicles accounted for slightly over half of the fatalities. Trucks played a large role in the incidence of job-related highway fatalities. Over half of the highway fatality victims had been driving or riding in a truck at the time of the incident, half of which were tractor trailer rigs. (See chart 1) And in one-fourth of the job-related highway fatalities, a truck collided with the vehicle in which the victim was riding. Table 2 shows the role vehicles played in highway incidents. For example, there were 344 incidents in which the deceased was driving or riding in an automobile. However, there were 162 incidents in which automobiles were identified as the vehicles with which the deceased's vehicle collided. Fatalities by occupation and industry. About two-fifths of the decedents were truck drivers; the rest worked in a variety of other occupations, including sales, farming, police, and executive and managerial jobs. (See table 3) The manner in which truck drivers were fatally injured in highway incidents is shown in chart 2. One-fourth of the workers fatally injured in highway incidents worked in the trucking and courier service industry. The remaining fatalities were widely dispersed among other industries. (See table 4) Demographic characteristics. Workers who were killed were operating the vehicle 88 percent of the time; the remainder were passengers. About 90 percent of the victims of fatal highway incidents were men, and most of them were white. About 10 percent of the job-related highway fatalities were self-employed or working in the family business, compared with almost 20 percent of all victims of job-related fatalities. (See table 5) (A)
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