Post-Meal Fatigue Seen as Safety Factor

A detailed human-factors analysis of three fatal truck accidents in Canada adds weight to the argument that improving driver safety performance is extremely complex and that highly variable factors such as time since the driver last ate a meal should get more attention..

The study of the three Canadian truck accidents, in which a total of nine people were killed, was part of a panel discussion on truck accidents at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting Jan. 7-11 in Washington.

Prepared by Michel Lair of the Institut de la Securite Routiere in Quebec, the study looked exhaustively at three accidents in which highway design, weather, visibility, excessive speed or mechanical failures were not factors.

TTNews Message Boards

All three accidents occurred in the middle of the after-noon on straight roads, two of which were divided, limited-access highways.



For the full story, see the Jan. 8 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.