Truck Driver Who Deviated From

¶ … truck driver who deviated from his planned route and also had another employee as a passenger. The driver swerved to avert a collision was still impacted. The driver suffered serious injuries and as a result of those injuries three weeks later. Questions revolve around facts, background, mitigation and prevention.

Findings (facts)

Passenger was unauthorized; trucks are not designed for carrying passengers.

Driver deviated from route without permission or cause.

Driver used a dark and unsafe route during deviation.

Though unsafe, the route was neither cordoned off nor was warning signs posted.

Truck hit steel pole, driver was thrown from cab.

Driver suffered serious injury and died three weeks later.

Safety Background -- in order to uphold a basic standard in which the public or the organization (employees, etc.) must have a safe environment. For the concern of the public, institutions (governmental) and regulations (designed to affect organizations) are put in place. Essentially, there are three major reasons for this: 1) morality -- society has a duty of reasonable care that does not put the health and safety of individuals at risk; society must have a moral obligation to service the public, 2) Legal -- Using the law to enforce regulations and issue damages; and 3) Economic -- direct and indirect costs of an unsafe environment put that organization, or the government, a fiscal risk (Roughton, 2002).

Recommended Corrective Action

Corrective action (HR) to passenger warning not to travel from one part of the facility to the other in a non-approved vehicle

Corrective action (HR) to driver -- unnecessary, driver expired.

Training/Inclusion in Training Manual/Briefing Memo -- the following items need to be addressed company wide, and in some cases, individual departments in detail:

Unauthorized use of company vehicles -- Rules about riders, vehicles that can be used, procedures, penalties, etc.

Unauthorized deviation from route -- Impact, rules, penalties.

Work with local city officials to cordon off dangerous area

Work with local city officials to either petition for new legislation or enforce current when building projects result in unsafe driving conditions

Work with utility company to provide better night lighting

Work with local newspaper and Chamber to inform citizens about safety procedures that involve city property, especially at night

Fault Analysis -- Blame, in a case like this, does not involve one person, but many. It is difficult to say whether one event would lead to another had x, y, or z not happened. There are clear violations in safety in a number of areas; however, the actual accident was the result of human errors, mis-judgement, and chance.

The following share culpability in the final result:

Driver -- the driver likely knew that he should not pick up a passenger, but we do not know for certain if there could not have been an accident if there had been no passenger. There is no clear proof the passenger, or where the passenger was sitting, caused the driver to fault.

Passenger -- the passenger, too, likely knew he should not ask for a ride from a delivery driver; he could also have said something politely about the unplanned and unauthorized deviation from the original route.

Company -- the Company may or may not have been at fault. If the company had proper procedures in its manual, if the company had an adequate training program, and if all training was given at appropriate times, and if both employees attended the training session, then the Company had reasonably followed all precautions. We might also ask if there were clear signs posted on the vehicles about drivers/passenger. We might delve into finding out how diligent the Company was on supervisor's adhering to rules, whether there was a safety committee, or procedures designed to ensure that there were appropriate safety regulations

Company Supervisors for Driver and Passenger -- to assign blame, we would first need to find out all the above (Company). Then we would need examine the records of the supervisors of both employees; had there been previous violations of rules; had the employees been adequately trained and counseled; if there had been previous warnings, what was the action plan. No supervisor can control an employee, but only train, counsel, and model behaviors.

City Traffic -- Much of blame toward the traffic or police departments would depend upon City, County, or State regulations. It would also depend on whether the various local entities followed the appropriate regulations.

City Police (see above)-

City Utilities -- the biggest question regarding blame would be whether there were regulations that required better lighting or better markings on certain construction sites. Did someone fail to inspect, or if they inspected, was the solution in process?

Local Government -- from local to regional to state; examine laws and find out if any violations occurred in terms of marking dangerous locations, etc. If statutes were in place, how are they regulated? What procedures ensure the public safety? Were these procedures violated during the time period of this accident? Which functional group, if any, would be responsible for ensuring public safety to prevent additional safety issues?