What's More Dangerous - The Job Site or the Trip to It?

Bloomberg reports that after decades of decline, deaths on U.S. roads are now increasing, 14.4% over the past two years. In 2016, more than 100 people died every day in or near vehicles in America, and regulators seem to have no idea why crash related deaths are spiking. A recent article in Bloomberg Business points to the ever-increasing use of smart phones as the potential culprit.

In the construction industry, we send a tremendous number of people out on the road every day. We have crews driving company trucks to bring tools and supplies to job sites each morning and back to the yard in the evening, while other crew members drive their personal vehicles from home to the site. Many of our superintendents get in their trucks and spend all day driving from site to site, overseeing work activity, or attending progress meetings. And it's not uncommon for many trade contractors to load up and move from site to site throughout the day as they complete activities on one job and move to the next.

All of this construction activity puts a tremendous number of vehicles on the road every day, and at least one study indicates that we are all doing things while we drive that are most certainly taking our focus away from actually driving. Zendrive, Inc. a San Francisco startup that analyzes smartphone data to help insurers of commercial fleets assess safety risks, conducted a study of 3 million people and found that drivers use their mobile phones during 88% of trips. One significant note in that study calls attention to the fact these numbers do not even include instances when phones were mounted in a fixed position.

This would indicate that while phones are getting smarter, the people using them while they drive are not bothering to take advantage of the improvements in technology that allow for an easy hands-free experience to reduce the distraction factor while driving. Yes, even the hands-free use of a smart phone while driving is still a distraction, but it is significantly less so than holding that phone and searching for an icon on the screen, or typing out a quick reply to let the office know you are on the way to the next project.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports indicate that transportation incidents are responsible for almost half of worker deaths every year; making this the single biggest cause of work related fatalities. Yet, with all the training we do in the construction industry, do we really spend much time taking driver training into consideration? Yes, the drivers who hold a Commercial Driver's License (CDL) have to undergo mandatory training and testing, but what about the rest of the drivers in the company? The one's driving the company pickup trucks, or even the ones that don't drive company vehicles. We still put these employees in their personal vehicles and ask them to drive to the next site. Are we giving them the information they need to get there safely?

Companies should also consider the possibility that their actions in the office can contribute to the problem. After you train your drivers not to text and drive, is the office sending them text messages and expecting immediate responses even though they are already en route to the next project? We can do incredible things with the smartphone; send directions and maps, check on job status, update schedules, etc., but we should all consider what we expect our employees to do with the information we send when their phone beeps to tell them they have a message.

#SmartphoneDriving

Jim Rogers is a construction industry expert with decades of experience in both construction management and education. and produces courses in construction management and safety for LinkedIn Learning.