Piloting a Reporting System for Roadside Safety Incidents

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. Previous studies have examined existing data sources to document the characteristics of incidents in which roadside responders were killed while working at the roadside; however, examining only fatalities provides a very limited perspective. It is important to capture information regarding other less severe incidents, including near misses, which occur far too often. The lack of reliable information on the frequency and characteristics of such incidents hinders efforts to understand the working environment of roadside responders and protect them while they assist other road users.

Reporting systems are invaluable tools for collecting this crucial data and such systems have been implemented in other domains. The aim of the current project was to develop and implement a system to capture key information about near misses experienced by service technicians working on the roadside and to conduct a pilot test in the field in cooperation with a towing organization.

Methodology

An incident reporting survey was developed and administered through Qualtrics. The short survey gathered information about a safety incident (near miss or struck-by), including time, location, conditions, and the surrounding environment, as well as what the technician was doing at the time and what safety countermeasures were in place.

The 6-month pilot test fielded the reporting system in a limited footprint and monitored its performance while identifying potential hurdles and areas for improvement. The pilot began with two initial locations. The first location had roughly 90 service vehicles and the second location had approximately 100 service vehicles. Both locations consisted of a mix of battery vehicles, flatbeds, and wreckers. (Note that the first location withdrew from the pilot after approximately 2 months so that efforts could be focused on the second location.)

Materials were provided with the towing organization, including window clings (with QR codes to access the survey), posters, and information sheets for safety managers. These materials were posted in various locations around the depot and inside service vehicles. Local safety managers socialized the program with the service technicians and provided continuous encouragement for their participation throughout the pilot.

Key Findings

While the pilot project was aimed more at the development and refinement of the process of gathering information about roadside incidents, a selected number of insights from data gathered are shared.

• Over 4,000 daily logs were completed, representing more than 22,000 service calls. In all, 18 near-miss incidents were reported, involving roadside work.
• Approximately 33% of the near-miss incidents occurred on minor roads, involving low speed and low traffic.
• Approximately 44% of the reported incidents occurred in dark and 33% occurred in daylight conditions. 56% of the incidents occurred without any reported adverse weather or road conditions.
• The most frequently reported safety measures employed at the time of the incident were traffic cones, emergency vehicle lighting, and high-visibility apparel.
• The predominant activity was loading or securing the customer vehicle.

It is important to note that these data should be interpreted with caution given the small number and limited sample. The main purpose is to illustrate potential insights that can be gleaned from such a reporting system as it is scaled up.

The pilot exercise also helped identify numerous areas for improvement which are being examined in follow-up work.