ASSIGNMENT#1

DHANRAJ MEENA
10236
TOPIC-Commercial vehicle safety
1. Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Safety Belt Usage (G. Bergoffen et al., 2005)
This Article mainly focused on five objectives First objective is Factors influences Commercial
Motor Vehicle (CMV) Drivers use or not to use safety belts in their daily operations. Second,
identified motivational factors affecting safety belt usages through surveys. Third, Explored
documented accounts and other research to isolate unsolved problems and other factors that have
limited CMV safety belt usage. Forth, discussion of techniques used by transportation managers
to encourage and potentially enforce safety belt usage. Finally, recommendations for additional
research to improve knowledge on motivational factors affecting usage of belt.
The primary way of obtaining information for this research were two parallel surveys one for
CMV fleet managers and other for CMV drivers. The survey included both objective and
subjective type questions asking fleet managers to about their particular safety management
practices relating belts and subjective questions addressed the reason why drivers do not use
belts. The survey also included YES-NO, Multiple choice, 5-point scale questions from fleet
managers and Drivers as well. These questions focused on the individual behavior and attitude of
driver. Direct interaction with drivers is not only the method to measure their behavior rather
than they also observed the behavior of drivers through interactions.
U.S. studies on the uses of safety belts (Hanna, 2003) observed that shoulder harness use on
highway and surface street locations are 83% of car drivers wore their safety belts, while 73%
truck drivers wore theirs. This study also determined passengers use 67% among truck
passengers and 79% among car passengers. (Cohen and Einar, 2001) found that laws applying to
all drivers did leads to increase in safety belts. The researchers concluded that if all states moved
toward a primary enforcement policy, national rates of safety belt use would increase 9% to 77%
and 500 lives would be saved annually. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of fleet managers said they
always wore safety belts at work while 80% said that they always wore their safety belt in their
Private vehicle. Consider driver in their fleet and question asked who did not wear safety belts
regularly the choices was YES, NO, NOT SURE. The researcher observed that Yes (20.2%), No
(38.4%) and Not Sure quiet high (41.4%) which perhaps proves the difficulty in answering this
question. Drivers interview survey also included such types of questions some questions are why
do they choose to wear safety belts the results as follows because safety (39%) , law(19%) , out
of habit(12%) , seen in accident (11%) and so on and other question is why do you choose not to
wear a safety belt the corresponding results are Uncomfortable(38%) , dislike(34%) , safety belts
are dangerous(14%), need mobility while driving(8%) etc. Many other interview questions were
also asked.

2. Safety Climate Of Commercial Vehicle Operation (Linda Ng Boyle, 2010)

This study focuses on management attitudes and considers factors that are largely related to the
safety climate within commercial vehicle operations. The objective of this study is to develop a
set of latent, or hidden, variables that capture the essence of safety manager safety attitudes.
The survey was administered to twenty-five safety managers at trucking companies and five
safety managers at motor coach companies. The survey questions were designed to assess
managers perceptions of safety. Factor analysis was conducted on the survey questions related
to the concept of safety climate where 17 variables used in the survey.
The survey results showed that safety managers viewed safety as a top priority or at least equal
to other major priorities, such as customer and operational concerns. About two-thirds of the
survey respondents reported that safety is integrated into driver screening, hiring, discipline,
firing and also into compensation, benefits, and incentives. Four loading factors were extracted
based on eigenvalues (>1).
First, the financial impact on safety (27.3%) where five questions were asked. Second, internal
awareness of safety (19.4%) in this item four questions were asked. Third demand for safety
(17.9%) and last one was overall safety culture in industry.
The strongest factor in the model which accounted for the highest level of variability is the
financial implications if safety is not met. The outcomes of the factor analysis show that financial
considerations are a critical factor for organizations, and may have a larger influence on safety
managers than expected. Safety managers primary concern is the overall safety of their
organization, but they may also realize the financial implications of not having high safety
standards.

3. Commercial Motor Vehicle Speed Control Devices (National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, may 1991)
This report reviews the problem of heavy vehicle speeding (in particular, speeding at greater than
65 kph) and speeding-related crash involvements. The report describes and assesses devices
available to control truck speed, and addresses the question of whether the use of speed control
devices by heavy trucks should be mandated. The report finds that, by all measures of crash
involvement, speeding is not a significant factor in the crash picture of single-unit trucks. Thus,
most of the report addresses combination-unit trucks, which present a more complex picture.
Manufacturers of truck engines and devices used in controlling truck speed were contacted.
Telephone discussions were conducted and/or available written product information was
obtained from some manufacturers, vendors, and industry association. Discussions with
representatives of these organizations provided general information on available technology and
its uses. Some devices are as follows for down hills there is no speed control device available
which can limit truck speed on downhill grades etc. Speed monitoring devices which record
speed rather than control vehicle speed. Monitors may potentially be used to enforce fleet

speed compliance on both 65 kph and 55 kph highways. Two common types of

monitoring devices are on-board computers and tachographs. These are explained in the
report.

4. Investigation of the Effects of Split Sleep Schedules on Commercial Vehicle Driver Safety
and Health (U.S. Department of Transportation, Dec. 2012)
The objective of this study was to evaluate the consequences for safety and health of split sleep
versus consolidated sleep by comparing the effects of consolidated nighttime sleep, split sleep,
and consolidated daytime sleep on total sleep time, performance, subjective state, and biomedical
measures that correlate with health outcomes over the long term.
To evaluate whether a split sleep opportunity is as beneficial as a consolidated sleep opportunity
with respect to sustaining driver total sleep time (TST), driver safety, driver operational
performance, and driver health over the long term, a three-condition design was developedone
experimental condition (split sleep opportunity) and two control conditions (consolidated
nighttime sleep opportunity, consolidated daytime sleep opportunity). Fifty-three participants
completed the study (53 men; mean age 26.51 years 4.07 years standard deviation); by
condition: consolidated nighttime sleep condition (19 participants), split sleep condition (17
participants), and consolidated daytime sleep condition (17 participants).
With respect to the effects of condition, the participants in the daytime sleep condition compared
to the nighttime and split sleep conditions slept less and were subjectively sleepier. There were
no systematic effects of condition on performance, other subjective measures, BP, or pulse.
References
1. http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/ctbssp/ctbssp_syn_8.pdf
2.http://matc.unl.edu/assets/documents/finalreports/Boyle_SafetyClimateofCommercialVehicleO
peration.pdf
3. http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/jpodocs/repts_te/8183.pdf
4. http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/facts-research/research-technology/report/12-003-SplitSleep_Investigation-of-the-Effects-of-Split-Sleep-Schedules-on-Commercial-Vehicle-DriverSafety-and-Health-508.pdf