page_title: Work-related road safety in the United States
section_title: The operating environment for work-related road safety
hierarchical_section_title: Work-related road safety in the United States / The operating environment for work-related road safety
caption_attribution_description: English: 1996 Ford Probe Dominos Delivery Car
context_page_description: People who are driving as part of their work duties are an important road user category. First, workers themselves are at risk of road traffic injury. Contributing factors include fatigue and long work hours, delivery pressures, distractions from mobile phones and other devices, lack of training to operate the assigned vehicle, vehicle defects, use of prescription and non-prescription medications, medical conditions, and poor journey planning. Death, disability, or injury of a family wage earner due to road traffic injury, in addition to causing emotional pain and suffering, creates economic hardship for the injured worker and family members that may persist well beyond the event itself.
  Employers are in a unique position because they can use the employer-employee relationship as leverage to complement and enforce government policies that require safety belt use, prohibit impaired driving, and prohibit mobile-phone use and other forms of distracted driving. Safe-driving policies implemented in the workplace can promote safer driving away from work.
context_section_description: Workplace driving in the U.S. takes place in two distinct settings: the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) regulatory regime that covers large trucks and buses, and the unregulated operation of lighter-weight fleet or personal vehicles driven for work purposes.  Regulations to promote safe operation of large trucks and buses have been part of U.S. Federal policy since the 1930s. Most recently, the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 assigned this regulatory responsibility to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in the U.S. Department of Transportation. Most of the large body of research on occupational road safety in the U.S. has focused on identifying and mitigating road risk for operators of large trucks and buses through behavioral, engineering, and management interventions.
  In contrast, there is no corresponding body of regulations applicable to U.S. workers who operate motor vehicles other than large trucks or buses as part of their job duties: i.e., those who operate lighter vehicles that are employer-owned or leased, or those who drive personal vehicles for work purposes. It is true that at-work drivers are covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) “general duty clause”, which requires that an employer provide “employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees”.
  Further, OSHA has issued regulations covering limited aspects of mobile equipment operation in construction, logging, marine terminals, and agriculture. However, OSHA has not put in place regulations for operation of motor vehicles on public roadways that would cover a wide range of vehicles, drivers, and work situations. In general, the OSHA policy response to occupational risks of light vehicle operation has been carried out through voluntary initiatives, guidance documents and ad hoc advisory committees.
  Operation of lighter vehicles in the U.S. workplace is in effect governed by traffic laws, augmented by employer policies. In the U.S., laws related to mobile-phone use, safety belts, speed limits, age of licensure, and license renewal are the responsibility of individual states.  Inconsistency from state to state can complicate road-safety management for organizations that operate in multiple states.  Many employers, recognizing the substantial economic and human toll of MVCs on their organizations and their workers, have implemented organizational policies for road safety that exceed the requirements of traffic laws.
  In response to safety advocacy, public opinion, and increasing threats of costly litigation, U.S. employers are moving to ban text messaging or use of mobile phones while driving on organizational business. The U.S. DOT, the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS), and the National Safety Council (NSC) offer a variety of resources to assist organizations in formulating and implementing policies on text messaging and mobile phone use: sample policies, reviews of liability issues, results of company surveys on mobile phone policies, and guidance on policy implementation and enforcement. FMCSA has recently issued rules banning both text-messaging and the use of handheld mobile phones by operators of commercial motor vehicles (large trucks and buses).
  The American Trucking Associations has published a comprehensive textbook on risk factors, proximal causes, and prevention of large/heavy truck crashes. Topics include the size and nature of the truck collision problem; safety research methods; driver, vehicle, and roadway risk factors; vehicle-based technologies; safety management and operations; regulations, enforcement, and compliance; and “active safety.” “Active safety” encompasses the many fleet-based safety practices that are beyond legal compliance requirements but which can dramatically enhance safety performance. The book emphasizes implementation of these practices within individual fleets, but they could also be disseminated through government-industry coll
caption: Light vehicles used for work, such as these pizza delivery cars, are not regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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