World at work: truck drivers

The road haulage industry employs millions of workers worldwide and most of them are male truck drivers (or lorry drivers in British English). Generally, truck drivers are poorly educated and have low socio-economic status. Nonetheless, truck driving is associated with freedom and adventure, and the job is appreciated for the autonomy that it gives. However, several hazards have been mentioned in the literature. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of: (1) the tasks and activities of truck drivers; (2) the hazards of the truck driver ’s job; and (3) measures to protect truck drivers. Before doing so, however, a general description of the different types of truck drivers is provided. Although all truck drivers spend a substantial part of their working day behind the wheel, they are not a homogeneous group as the remaining tasks can differ enormously from one driver to another. Hence, it is useful to categorise truck drivers, which has been done in different ways. First, truck drivers can be classified according to driving distance, ranging from local delivery drivers with dozens of different addresses to call to each day to long-distance drivers with journeys of more than 1 day. Generally the proportion of working time spent driving increases and the amount of time loading and unloading decreases with longer distances. Large countries, such as Australia and the USA, tend to have relatively more long-distance drivers. Second, truck drivers are often grouped by the (type of) product they transport or by the method of transport. The (type of) product can be the key factor in occupational exposures. For instance, transport of hazardous chemical materials increases the driver ’s risk of being exposed to these chemicals, and transport of animals or flowers might involve exposure to certain biological hazards. However, the (type of) product does not have a consistent relationship with the hazards of the job, since the same product can be transported several times. For instance, goods can be transported from a harbour to warehouses in large sea containers, distributed from the warehouse to shops on pallets, and delivered from the shop to customers as packed goods. Truck drivers can also be classified according to these methods of transport, which overlap to some extent with the type of product, since certain products are likely to be transported in a particular way (eg, petrol in tankers, or sand in dump trucks). Although large amounts of cargo are still being transported by traditional methods (eg, as packed goods), more and more containers, pallets or wheeled cages are being used. This unitisation offers opportunities to use aids and appliances, thereby reducing the hazards of the job. The use of sea containers has led to truck drivers not having to load and unload cargo themselves anymore. In contrast, the use of pallets and wheeled cages sometimes results in truck drivers manually pushing and pulling large loads.