Professional drivers overwork and public safety  

Huang Yi-Ling/ translated by Joseph Yeh

SEP 25 2020

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On Feb. 2017, a tour bus listed under the Iris Travel Service Co., Ltd. (蝶戀花旅行社) crashed off a ramp connecting Freeway No. 5 and Freeway No. 3 in eastern Taipei, leaving 33 people dead and 11 injured, including its driver.According to local media reports, the driver in question had worked over 13 hours prior to the accident. His family also disclosed that he had been driving for 16 consecutive days without taking one day off. We could only imagine that the driver must be exhausted prior to the accident. What is truly sad, however, is that having their drivers overwork has been a common practice for bus companies in Taiwan and the deadly incident was hardly an isolated one. 

In April 2018, two highway traffic police officers and the driver of a truck that was pulled over for traffic violation were killed by another truck on the highway. Investigations later showed that the driver responsible for the incident had worked for nearly 12 hours straight with only one hour break in between prior to the accident. Also, in order to claim attendance bonus given by his company, the driver had to work 28 days a month. Prior to the car accident, he had worked 22 consecutive days. He had also worked over 12 hours a day in 7 days of the total 22 days, meaning he had not enough rest and the accident was likely caused by fatigue. He was later sentenced to two-year prison term over negligent homicide on July 2020.

On June. 2019, another driver of an Aloha Bus Co. bus fell asleep while driving on the highway, after the bus ran off a freeway in Changhua County, killing three people and injuring 13. On May 2020, a bus driver at Taipei City crashed into another bus at the bus stop allegedly because of fatigue. The incident resulted in three injuries.

These are just several examples in Taiwan in recent years that showed how long-working hours and lack of enough rest could lead to major traffic accidents. Overwork not only seriously affected the health of professional drivers but also dealt a serious blow to public safety. 

Falsified Working Hours

After a number of fatal accidents were later found linked to bus drivers working extended overtime hours, the issue of overworked professional drivers has received increased attention in Taiwan over the years. As such, it is currently required that bus drivers insert USB drives into their buses to log their working hours when they begin driving. However, it was found this August that the Taoyuan Bus Company was requiring that drivers use two sets of USBs in order to avoid their overwork being discovered. Local media reports said in fact many of the company’s drivers are working 13 to 16 hours a day. After less than 10 hours of rest, drivers have to start working at five or six a.m. early the next day. After such irregularities were exposed by local media, Taoyuan Motor Vehicles Office had launched two rounds of inspection to the bus company in question but found no irregularities. However, Hsinchu Motor Vehicles Office later launch another round of inspection to the same company and found 245 irregularities. Taoyuan Motor Vehicles Office is thus accused of being lax in its inspections. 

Drivers: Overwork High Risk Group

According to statistics provided by Ministry of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Insurance (BLI), those who work in transportation and storage businesses have relatively higher risk to have work-related cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases. Between 2011 to 2019, a total of 679 people had applied for subsidy from the BLI for work-related cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases. Among the 679, 104 of them worked in transportation and storage sector. The sector ranks No. 3 behind service sector and manufacturing sector as the businesses that have higher risk to develop work-related cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases.

People working in the transportation and storage businesses only constitute about 4 percent of total workers in Taiwan. However, among those who filed for work-related cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases subsidy from the BLI, 15 percent them worked in the transportation and storage sector. The number shows that people in the sector has comparatively higher risk to suffer from work-related diseases.

Meanwhile, according to a study that assesses the impact of psychosocial work-related factors for cardiovascular disease among 1,650 bus drivers in Taiwan from 2005 to 2012, conducted by Wu Wei-te (吳威德) at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences under the National Health Research Institutes, around 42 percent of these drivers have issue of “overcommitment,” meaning they thought of work-related problems after work and even lost sleep because of so doing. Among those 42 percent of drivers that have issue of “overcommitment,” their chances to develop cardiovascular diseases are 7.36 times higher than their counterparts that do not have “overcommitment” issue, according to the study. They also have 11.57 higher risk to develop Ischemic Heart Disease than their counterparts that do not have “overcommitment” issue.

The same study also shows that over 40 percent of these bus drivers had worked over 12 hours a day, leading to the fact that they did not have enough personal time to develop intimate relations with his or her family and friends. Therefore, they put their whole attention in their works and they became “overcommitted” because of so doing. Overcommitment in their jobs mean they regularly drive for long hours due to an unstable shift and they also tend to have low quality sleep, which could all lead to higher risk in developing cardiovascular diseases.

The issue of professional driver overwork has been a long term one. In Taiwan, we often see in news reports that a bus driver had done his or her best to park the bus in order to safe the lives of passengers before he or she passed out due to heart attack or a stroke. Media often praised the heroic act of the driver in such occasions but we don't need our driver in showing their heroism, or blaming exhausted drivers after their exhaustions led to traffic accidents.What we need is to see private companies and government in taking responsibility to jointly to build a safe working environment for professional drivers to make sure similar road safety accidents from happening again.