Toll Facility Safety Study Report to Congress - About

Toll Facility Safety Study Report to Congress
3.1.2 Conclusions
Based on an analysis of records for 2,662 worker injuries representing 15 agencies, it can be
observed that:
The most common causes of injuries are general falls, slips, and trips (28 percent);
being struck by an object (11 percent); and pulling, lifting, and pushing an object (9
percent).
The most common injury types are cuts, scrapes, and abrasions (22 percent); strains
(18 percent); pains (11 percent); and sprains (11 percent).
The most common body parts injured include the knee (12 percent), back (11
percent), head (8 percent), and hand (8 percent).
In terms of what else can be seen from the data, it is interesting to note that 12 percent of the
workplace injuries were designated as “involving a vehicle,” although it appears that the majority
of these injuries did not involve direct contact between the vehicle and the worker. Instead they
may have involved a motorist pulling the collector’s hand while passing through the plaza. This
does indicate, however, that the interaction between vehicles and workers plays a critical role
when it comes to worker safety.
While it was possible to examine these trends in the injury data, these findings can only be said
to be general observations. The data obtained during this study was not broad enough or
consistent enough to draw significant industry-wide conclusions or to fully examine trends.
Therefore the findings of this analysis cannot necessarily be said to be representative for the
Nation’s toll facilities as a whole.
3.2 Vehicular Crashes
3.2.1 Analysis
Crash data collected during the study represented 10,322 vehicular crashes occurring between
1994 and 2006. The majority of the data represents crashes occurring between 2001 and 2006,
although one agency provided data going back to 1994. As different agencies provided data for
different time periods, it is not possible to discern meaningful yearly trends from the data.
Although the data supplied were not in a standard format, many agencies collected similar data
elements. The most common fields included in the crash data were:
Accident location.
Date and time.
Crash type (at a minimum indicating whether the accident caused property damage
only, or an injury or fatality).
Data fields that were less common but present in some of the datasets included:
Weather conditions at the time of the accident.
Number of vehicles involved.
Type of vehicles involved.
Findings – Characteristics of Accidents and Injuries Occurring at Toll Plazas Page 13