Truckie 'deviants' more likely to crash

Truck drivers who are selfish or mildly "socially deviant" are more likely to have crashes, says a Massey University lecturer.

"Trucks are involved in a disproportionately high number of fatal crashes and I wanted to investigate some of the human factors that may contribute to this," said Mark Sullman.

He analysed 381 questionnaires from truck drivers for a PhD thesis.

"I measured selfishness and mild social deviance, which is doing things that are wrong but most people have been tempted to do ... for example, parking illegally or calling in sick when they are not sick."

Dr Sullman found both traits led to increased traffic violations. Truck drivers who reported committing most traffic violations were more likely to crash, he said.

However, the safety climate at trucking companies was also a big factor influencing driver behaviour.

"If [the company] doesn't value safety, if they think it's a waste of time, then that impacts on the likelihood the driver will increase violations, which in turn means he or she will be more likely to have a crash."

Dr Sullman, a lecturer in organisational behaviour and ergonomics at the university, suggested traffic violations could be reduced through improved driver-company attitudes and by using policed tracking devices. He found petrol tanker drivers were the safest on the road.

Land Transport Safety Authority figures show about 80 people a year die as a result of crashes between trucks and cars or motorcycles. It said that in most cases the driver of the car or motorcycle was at fault, through lack of awareness of the dangers of sharing roads with large vehicles.

- NZPA


Herald Feature: Road safety