title: Commercial vehicles and road safety in Pakistan: exploring high-risk attributes among drivers and vehicles.
abstract: Road traffic injuries are on the rise in developing countries with a disproportionately high number of crashes involving commercial vehicles. Baseline information on risk factors is necessary to develop targeted prevention programmes. A survey of commercial drivers was conducted at the largest bus and truck station in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Structured interviews elicited information from 857 drivers on their socio-demographics, high-risk driving behaviours, fatigue, use of drugs while driving, vehicle maintenance and health conditions, as well as crash involvement. A binary logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the factors associated with crash involvement in the last five years. Overall, 92 (11.2%) drivers reported having had a road crash in the last 5 years. Factors independently associated with the occurrence of crashes were alcohol use (OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.1-4.4), poor vehicle maintenance (OR 3.4, 95% CI 1.7-7.01) and lack of seat belt use (OR 2.7, 95% CI 1.3-5.6). The high prevalence of high-risk attributes in the study population indicates a great need for targeted risk prevention.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Emergency Medicine , Aga Khan University Hospital , Karachi , Pakistan.
authors.forename: Mohammed Umer
authors.initials: MU
authors.lastname: Mir
authors.forename: Junaid Abdul
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Razzak
authors.forename: Khabir
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ahmad
mesh_terms: D000062:Accidents, Occupational; D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D001334:Automobile Driving; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D008283:Maintenance; D008297:Male; D008385:Marijuana Smoking; D008875:Middle Aged; D018986:Motor Vehicles; D010154:Pakistan; D012307:Risk Factors; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012449:Safety; D012622:Seat Belts / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult