Developing a Near-Miss Reporting System for Roadside Responders

Abstract

Introduction

The safety of roadside responders is often placed in jeopardy by the potential dangers posed by passing vehicles. To develop and implement effective protection measures for roadside responders, comprehensive safety data is essential. Traditional methods relying on crash data to identify incidents involving roadside responders, such as struck-by or secondary crashes, provide some information about the risks, but fail to capture information regarding near-miss incidents that occur far too often. These near misses, in which roadside technicians narrowly avoid crashes or harm, often go unreported and undocumented, creating a significant data gap. The lack of reliable information on the frequency and characteristics of near-miss incidents hinders efforts to understand the working environment of roadside responders and protect them while they assist other road users. Near-miss reporting systems are therefore invaluable tools for collecting this crucial data. Despite the existence of several reporting systems tailored for roadside responders and for workers in other domains, these platforms exhibit notable deficiencies in both the quality and quantity of reports submitted. These shortcomings highlight the necessity for a more robust and effective system. To address this critical issue, the current project aims to identify the elements required for a successful near-miss reporting system specifically designed for roadside responders.

Methodology

Four major technical tasks were carried out for this project:

1. Review of existing reporting systems: This task aimed to identify, review, and document existing and relevant reporting systems, along with key attributes of these systems.
2. Interviews with stakeholders: Nine interviews were conducted with both developers and managers of existing reporting systems, aiming to gain agency-level insights regarding the challenges, barriers, and opportunities of developing a near-miss incident reporting system for roadside responders.
3. Focus groups: Six focus groups involving 28 participants from 19 states and from different agencies were conducted to understand how roadside responders perceive and participate in near-miss reporting.
4. National survey: A national survey was administered and completed by over 1,300 respondents to gather additional insights regarding working experience, training background, incident reporting experience, attitudes toward near-miss reporting, perspective about reporting system design, and other general information.

Key Findings

Collectively, the project tasks yielded several important insights into challenges and barriers to reporting near-misses. A few selected insights from the review, interviews, focus groups, and survey are presented. A comprehensive account is provided in the full report.

• Nearly 30% of towing industry respondents reported encountering near-miss incidents daily, a rate that is significantly higher than other agency types, including law enforcement, fire, etc.
• While 85% of respondents believe reporting near-miss incidents can improve safety practices, over 40% of towing respondents reported not receiving any incident reporting training.
• More than 40% of respondents from towing and law enforcement perceive near-miss incidents as a routine part of their job.
• The majority of stakeholders believe that having tools to assess and analyze near-miss data will significantly benefit their respective organizations, allowing them to translate insights from data into actionable items via training materials.
• Early training, continuing education, and strong and committed leadership were considered necessary to embed the culture of reporting near misses within a respective organization.
• Making systems easily accessible and viable to use with smartphones could increase the amount of reporting as most responders do not have access to computers.
• Respondents from towing agencies shared concerns about reporting, including potential insurance impacts, legal consequences, as well as the burden of completing reports.
• Stakeholders discussed the potential use of advanced technologies to augment data about near misses.

These insights were translated into a series of recommendations for near-miss reporting systems, as shown in the table below. See the full report for a comprehensive list.