Why Do Haul Truck Fatal Accidents Keep Occurring?

Powered haulage continues to be a large safety concern for the mining industry, accounting for approximately 50% of the mining fatal accidents every year. Among these fatal accidents, haul-truck-related accidents are the most common, with 6 of 28 and 6 of 27 fatal accidents occurring in 2017 and 2018, respectively. To better understand why these accidents continue to occur and what can be done to prevent them, researchers reviewed the 91 haul-truck-related fatal accidents that occurred in the USA from 2005 to 2018 and performed bow-tie analyses using the final reports published by the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Performance consequences of alternating directional control-response compatibility: evidence from a coal mine shuttle car simulator.

Objective: To investigate error and reaction time consequences of alternating compatible and incompatible steering arrangements during a simulated obstacle avoidance task.

Background: Underground coal mine shuttle cars provide an example of a vehicle in which operators are required to alternate between compatible and incompatible steering configurations.

Methods: This experiment examines the performance of 48 novice participants in a virtual analogy of an underground coal mine shuttle car.