Safety challenges and oversight in the motorcoach industry: attitudes and perceptions of drivers, roadside inspectors, and federal investigators.

Safety challenges and oversight in the motorcoach industry: attitudes and perceptions of drivers, roadside inspectors, and federal investigators. Ann Adv Automot Med. 2012;56:57-67 Authors: Braver ER, Dodd RS, Cheung I, Long LO Abstract Interstate motorcoach travel has been the fastest-growing transportation mode in recent years. To identify challenges to monitoring compliance with motorcoach safety regulations and to examine factors affecting safety, four focus groups with a total of 32 participants were conducted during 2011, one with federal safety investigators, one with state motor carrier inspectors, and two with motorcoach drivers. Investigators and inspectors expressed concern about falsified logbooks, inadequate sleep among motorcoach drivers, hazards from speeding motorcoaches, practices by motorcoach carriers to mask ownership and avoid oversight, and difficulties keeping up with rapid motorcoach industry growth. Drivers described problems with getting sufficient sleep, pressure to drive longer than permitted, and fears of motor carriers giving them less work if they turned down driving jobs. Drivers said that driving 72-74 mph was acceptable in light traffic. To help assess workload among personnel performing safety oversight, data on numbers of motor carriers, commercial motor vehicles, federal investigators, and state inspectors were obtained from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The data suggest...
Source: Annals of Advances in Automotive Medicine - Category: Global & Universal Tags: Ann Adv Automot Med Source Type: research