Commercial vehicles and road safety in Pakistan: Exploring high-risk attributes among drivers and vehicles

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.