The Need for Enhanced Heavy Vehicle Crash Investigation: Beyond 'Blame the Driver'

Abstract

The heavy vehicle transport industry is considered to be the most dangerous to work in. The number of crashes resulting in injuries and deaths surpasses that of other transport and industrial sectors combined. The economic and personal impacts are immeasurable. There is a distinct absence of a uniform approach to investigating these crashes to identify the systemic causal factors, as is in place for other transport industries. There is a need for governments, to accept that current investigation processes are not working and a new approach to investigating heavy vehicle crashes is needed to assure the underlying causes are identified, the lessons learned and effective corrective actions informed to prevent future crashes.