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Work-related Road Crashes of Emergency Vehicles in Québec

Author(s): Patrice Duguay, François Bellavance, Sonia Pignatelli

Slidedeck Presentation Only (no paper submitted):

2C Duguay_Work-Related Road Crashes of Emergency Vehicle in Québec

Abstract:

Motor vehicle collisions at work (MVCW) represent 2% of compensated work injuries but about 30% of compensated accidental fatalities at work. It is the highest cause of accidental deaths at work. To better understand the characteristics of these work-related collisions, the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec (CSST), the Québec workers compensation board, requested a statistical study on the MVCW that occurred in Québec between 2000 and 2008.

The data from the CSST occupational injuries database were linked with the data from road crashes police reports extracted from the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) database. Nearly 8600 MVCW were successfully linked and studied using univariate and multivariate statistical methods including multiple correspondence and cluster analyses.

Seven clusters of injured workers in a motor vehicle collision were identified. One cluster mainly included injured workers in an emergency vehicle. This cluster represents nearly 10% of all compensated workers involved in a MVCW. The Injured workers, among others, are police officers (42%) and ambulance attendants or nurses (11%). Compared to all MVCW, collisions in this cluster are more likely to occurred at a road intersection (50% against 17% for all MVCW), in urban areas where the speed limit is 60 km / h or less (85% against 36%) between 8 pm and midnight (22% against 7%) or between midnight and 4 am (17% against 5%), Saturday (19% against 6%) or Sunday (14% against 4%). It also differs from the other clusters by a high proportion of collisions due to non-respect of a stop or a traffic light (32% against 10%). The average age of victims is the lowest (33 years) of the seven clusters due to a preponderance of 25-34 years (46% against 28% for all MVCW) and 16-24 years (17% against 11%). Women are slightly more represented (32%) than for all MVCW (26%). It is also the group in which there is the highest proportion of workers victim of MVCW as passenger (39% against 11%). The proportion of injured workers not wearing their seat belt is also quite high (20%).

In conclusion, although this cluster of MVCW is not the largest in number of victims, it seems to have several specific characteristics that could be used to identify interventions for prevention like collisions at intersections and weekend evening and night road crashes.