Sustaining an injury on the job is never easy, but it is especially hard when the injury puts you off work for a long time. Career-ending injuries are the most difficult to deal with because they leave you with no possibility of returning to work. This can be tough when you are a truck driver and that is all you have ever done. To suddenly be stuck at home in Connecticut when you were used to traveling every day is hard to adjust to.
The Department of Labor offers some statistics about truck driving that paint a very bleak picture for truck drivers. These facts and figures tell a story about the dangerous industry. Learning this information could help you to better understand the risks involved in driving a truck.
Coming in at the top
Being at the top of a list is not always good. That is exactly the case with truck driving and the list of dangerous jobs. Truck drivers make up one out of every six people killed while working in the United States.
Beyond deaths in the industry, injuries are also very serious in this field. As a truck driver, you have the greatest risk of an injury or illness that will cause you to take time off work than any other profession. Truck drivers represent one out of every 20 work-related injuries.
Protecting yourself
The best way to protect yourself is knowledge. You need to learn what hazards exist and how to avoid them. Your employer should work to ensure you have a safe truck to drive and not overload your schedule so you have to bend the law or take risks to get the job done.
Staying safe while trucking is a matter of being a focused and well-trained driver. This is a tough job, so you need to be ready to do what you can to avoid the risks.
