Truck Driver Remuneration Must Be Increased To Reduce Road Accidents 

On average, 200 people are killed in truck-related accidents every single year across Australia. While this is an improvement from previous years, there is still clearly much more to do to ensure better safety standards for truck drivers. Many research reports and studies, some of which have been conducted over a 40 year period, have found a clear correlation between salary and road safety, owing largely to the need to overwork oneself when being paid minimally.

In this article we will further explore the relationship between payment regimes and road safety, and how healthier remuneration packages could help to reduce road accidents.

Salary-Related Causes Of Road Accidents

As touched upon, the underlying logic – backed up by empirical evidence – is that low, subsistence level salaries force truck drivers to work longer, harder hours for an adequate daily income than if they received higher pay. This overworking results in fatigue which can cause road accidents such as crashes, generally hazardous behavior, and even drug-use to maintain performance capabilities despite extreme tiredness.

More specifically, the data shows that distance-based and piece-rate compensation methods are especially linked to causing truck drivers to continue working while fatigues, and for obvious reason. If workers are rewarded on distance or per project, their working incentive is to drive as far as possible, or complete journeys as fast as possible. If however they were paid based on an hourly wage for example, there would be less incentive to work beyond their physical capacities, thus lowering the risk of road accidents for truck drivers.

The above payment methods have also been linked to higher, and harmful, caffeine and amphetamine use, for the sole purpose of staying awake longer than they physically should.

Countering Your Concerns

While you may think that paying truck drivers on an hourly wage, or higher wage than what is required, could lead to lower productivity, the cost to human life surely outweighs this. The evidence undoubtedly shows, across many industries but especially those concerning heavy vehicles, that pay based on productivity results in drivers being less risk-averse, and thus more likely to speed or drive for periods of time that are longer than recommended.

Potential Solutions

On a basic level, the first and foremost fix should be enforcing a reasonable minimum wage and payment-basis which ensure suitable safety standards for truck drivers. Beyond this, Australia could seek to revise policy and regulatory frameworks to help reiterate these expected safety standards. Finally, and arguably most importantly, better recognition and understanding of the value of human life – which is so often imperiled on the roads simply because of inadequate pay – would help ensure more humane payment systems.

There is an undeniable correlation between remuneration and road accidents for truck drivers in Australia, and to take steps to reduce these incidents, a higher wage is a necessary starting point.