title: Fatigue: a major cause of commercial livestock truck accidents.
abstract: Accident reports on 415 commercial livestock truck accidents were tabulated between 1994 and June 2007 in the United States and Canada. Data was collected from Google internet searches of newspaper and television news reports, unpublished industry sources and Alberta government agencies. Fifty-nine percent of the accidents occurred during the early morning hours from midnight to 9:00 am and 80% involved a single vehicle. Driver error was blamed for 85% of the wrecks. In 83% of the accidents, the vehicle rolled over and 84% of the truckers tipped over on their right side. In North America, vehicles travel on the right-hand side of the road and if a driver falls asleep at the wheel he usually drifts off toward the right. Driver fatigue is the most likely explanation for many of these accidents.
authors.affiliation: J. Woods Livestock Services, RR #1, Blackie, Alberta, Canada. livestockhandling@mac.com
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.forename: Temple
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Grandin