A study on Commercial Truck Driver’s Vulnerability in India – Mitigations and Strategies for enrichment of Truck Drivers lifestyle By Dr. P. Senthilkumar* and N. Rajkumar Abstract

To overcome the hurdles faced by these truck drivers, there should be more than one channel to get fused in order to facelift truck drivers as it is being done in nowadays automobiles for every three years to compete in the global competition. When specified more than one channel, it can be government, commercial vehicle manufacturer and media as well.

After the survey exercise and findings through analysis, it is objectively evident that the truck drivers are at huge risk in terms of behaviour, safety, health and with environmental factors. The survey finding concludes that there is a necessity to address the truck driver’s vulnerabilities in order to enrich their lifestyle. The outcomes and the grievances captured through this finding is that there is no proper road infrastructure, no better place to eat healthy food, poor highway safety, high risk sexual behaviour and STD, low salary and low end facilities in trucks.

In this paper they survey outcomes also reveals the data on police harassment. Whenever the truck drivers are entering into a new city or state, the highway police literally wait for them, threatening them to pay or else get their vehicle documents and license revoked.  One of the trucker conveyed that all these are however they are used to it nowadays. It is the responsibility of government of India to take necessary measures to patrol these areas of high density bribe areas with vigilance department to control the harassment of the police.

In the next section the strategies and enhancement of truck driver’s lifestyle is discussed.

In the previous sections all the parameters related to vulnerable jobs underwent by truck drivers were discussed. This paper does not just conclude by only analysing the survey findings. In this section some of important strategies are being discussed to enhance the truck driver’s lifestyle and how to mitigate the existing vulnerabilities which they had undergone in the past.

As mentioned in the previous section, to overcome the hurdles faced by the truck drivers there has to more than one channel or platform who can fuse to make a significant change in this country to enhance the truck driver lifestyle.

The strategies are driver wellness programs through government bodies to create wellness demonstrations of how being healthy. A fully integrated well ness program can develop an environment that motivates healthy options, gives access to health promotion resources and makes healthy living life as priority.

Wellness lessons from logistics organization, the perspective of creating a bottom line wellness program directly under the corporate social responsibility aspect in order to improve the well-being of truck drivers.

Creating social networking health outreach program for truck drivers in the ongoing creation where it is anticipated that this effort will result in greater acceptance as well as foster mutual support within the truck driver community.

8.2 Creation of Driver Training Institutes

Commercial Truck Manufacturers to adopt truck drivers through driver training institutes and giving them job with substantial salary. This is one of the best strategies which Ashok Leyland limited had started in the past and doing well. The objective is to train the drivers and attach these drivers to the respective owners who buy the trucks from Ashok Leyland Ltd. The Job security is ensured to the truck driver and the respective person can be shuffled from Logistics Company to other logistics company like a job rotation as prevailing with high profile corporate employees.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has to be taken up by each truck manufacturing company to come forward and set up recreational facilities which includes resting area, sports, swimming pool, and hygienic medical canters for any emergency. During the survey this question was most liked by many of the drivers.

Comparatively the Indian trucking sector is not much focussing on the high end technologies in the commercial vehicles. This is one of the important aspects which is going to address improved ergonomics and comfort for driver in Indian driving condition. The focus has to be on the psychological and behavioural pattern of Indian drivers along with the Ergonomic issues. Driver’s comfort is not even a factor in existing Indian trucks. Driving a truck in Indian condition such as the condition of roads and other factors are not up to the standard. Driving throughout the day in such conditions leads to physical and psychological deterioration of drivers. This may even lead to accidents. So it is the responsibility or need from the commercial vehicle manufactures to adopt high end technology considering ergonomics and comfort for existing driving conditions in India. There is a wide scope to implement AMT, AC cabins, 4 point suspended cabin. This migration to high end technology solutions are very much prevalent in western and European countries and truck manufacturers in India has to adopt these technologies to reduce the fatigue and this may result in improved healthy life.

Another new terminology is Truck Driver to an entrepreneur. This is not followed by all logistics operator. The logic behind this is the logistics operator hire a truck driver and gives him a target for fuel consumption and operational cost per day and he is directed to spend with in the specified limit including the maintenance as well. At the end of the fifth year the truck which the driver had maintained becomes the owner of the vehicle by giving a very meagre depreciation amount compared less than the market rate. This strategy ensures truck driver retention and finally the truck driver owns a truck. These limitations constraints the truck driver in not leading to high risk sex behaviours and reduces drug consumption. He saves the money for the maintenance of the truck with the ambition of owning a truck.

The above said strategies and improvement in national highway infrastructure will help the truck drivers to de stress and enhance their lifestyle with wellbeing and good habits taking away from being handling vulnerabilities in their life.

9. Conclusion

From all the survey outcomes it is evident that the truck drivers have the biggest issue with the public that they are seen as migrators of sexually transmitted diseases. However, the truck drivers are the lifeline of India.

One more critical findings is that the truckers tire themselves for hours and to distress them they are involved in multiple sexual affairs and to de fatigue them they consume drugs and alcohol. When interviewed with the truckers about implementing highway recreational facilities and warehouses which includes medical facilities, they had welcomed it. This paper puts forth to the commercial vehicle manufacturer that as part of corporate social responsibility they set up these facilities on highways duly maintained by them. It is not just selling the trucks also to ensure that they take of the truckers who drive their trucks and these facilities also addresses the highway safety as well.

From the statistical analysis and data, it is evident that many factors like age and number of accidents occurring on the highways are significant among the treatments with the given frequency of drivers. The accidents are due to various factors. To overcome this, government of India should come up with measures to improve the road infrastructure and vehicle manufacturers to benchmark global manufacturers to migrate to modern high end trucks with bear minimum AC cabins to reduce the fatigue of the truck drivers.

Finally few strategies are being discussed to enhance the lifestyle of the truck drivers. It is believed that the strategies which are listed above will surely drive a positive change in the truck drivers community where currently the truck drivers are used as only tool but in future with these wellness strategies it gives them and our public to view as common public or human beings.

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