Development of a specialist investigation standard for heavy vehicle fatal collisions in Victoria

The Work Related Liaison Service (WRLS) of the Victorian Coronial Services Centre was established in July 2005. The primary role of the WRLS is to assist the coroner by investigating work-related deaths and providing evidence-based information on injury risk factors and countermeasures in order to facilitate effective inter-agency collaboration. The underlying aim of the WRLS is to enhance injury prevention and control. In the 2005-2006 financial year WRLS noted that 29 of the deaths meeting their inclusion criteria involved a heavy vehicle, and that 33 of the total number of workers unintentionally killed whilst undertaking their core work activity were heavy vehicle drivers. It was then determined that the investigation of fatal heavy transport collisions needed to be improved in order to assist in the systematic identification of causal risk factors. The development of a comprehensive investigation standard for work-related heavy vehicle crashes is the focus of this paper. The standard benefited from the input of a number of experts from different areas of heavy vehicle safety and will be validated by applying it to a collection of cases in a retrospective analysis, before prospective field trials are conducted by expert police crash investigators.