Workplace safety in private companies of freights and on the road workers: comparison between small and medium enterprises

Workplace safety in private companies of freights and on the road workers: comparison between small and medium enterprises". Background: The road freight and passenger transport sector exposes the workers of this sector to a considerable health risk. Application of the relative legislation to safeguard worker's safety is an obligation for the employer. Objectives: The aim of the study was to assess the application of current legislation in the trucking sector and ascertain whether there are differences between large and small enterprises. Methods: The study was conducted through direct interview with managers of road freight and passenger transport companies in the Lazio Region in 2009. Information was collected using a questionnaire composed of 77 items concerning risk assessment and organization aspects in the enterprises. The enterprisers were stratified by number of workers and drivers. To detect possible associations the Chi-squared and Fisher's Exact tests were used. Results: A total of 42 enterprisers participated in the study. Significant differences were found between larger enterprisers (>= 10 workers) and smaller enterprises (<10 workers), concerning risk assessment from vibrations (p=0.006), night work (p=0.026), microclimatic conditions (p=0.047). Regarding risk prevention/management aspects, the enterprisers with a higher number of workers were more likely to have a workers' representative for safety compared to the smaller enterprises (respectively 88.9% versus 50.0%) and a road accidents Register (77.8% versus 16.7%), with p<0.001 significance levels. Conclusions: The risks most frequently assessed, in decreasing order, were: vibrations, manual handling of loads, stress, noise, awkward postures, night work, alcohol consumption, drug addiction and microclimatic conditions. Vibrations, night work and microclimatic conditions risks were assessed to a lower degree in the smaller enterprisers compared to the larger enterprises.