Risk Factors for Collisions and Near-Miss Incidents Caused by Drowsy Bus Drivers

Genta Miyama, Masakatsu Fukumoto, Ritsuko Kamegaya and Masahito Hitosugi
Additional contact information
Genta Miyama: Department of Legal Medicine, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga 520-2192, Japan
Masakatsu Fukumoto: i·OH Laboratory Co., Ltd., Tokyo 153-0063, Japan
Ritsuko Kamegaya: Health Service Planning, Tokyo 160-0022, Japan
Masahito Hitosugi: Department of Legal Medicine, Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga 520-2192, Japan

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 12, 1-11

Abstract: Serious accidents have been caused by drowsy bus drivers and have necessitated an examination of the risk factors involved. A questionnaire survey among employees of a bus company was conducted in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan in September 2014. Respondents were asked to report details of their work and life over the preceding month. The 301 valid responses by bus drivers (295 men and 6 women) with a mean age of 51.6 years (range: 24–73 years) were used for analysis. Univariable logistic regression showed that factors affecting the incidence of collisions and near-miss incidents by drowsy drivers were continued driving when feeling sick, reporting a physical condition, number of sleep hours, time spent with family, working hours, and nutritional balance. According to a multiple regression analysis, continued driving when feeling sick (odds ratio: 3.421, 95% confidence interval: 1.618–7.231) was the only significant risk for the event. Managers should encourage drivers to voluntarily report poor health and should provide opportunities to stop driving if drivers experience physical discomfort or sleepiness. To improve road safety, educational measures are required for both drivers and managers to prevent driving under poor health conditions, although the decision to stop driving depends on drivers’ subjective judgment.

Keywords: drowsy driving; risk factors; bus drivers; safety education; risk management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4370/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4370/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:12:p:4370-:d:373145

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().