– By Marc Sibbald –
At the recent AfMA professional development forum in NSW Susie Stinton from the University of Sydney presented details of her research on driving after a wrist injury.
At first this didn’t sound like the most exciting topic to discuss first thing on a Tuesday morning, but the relevance to fleet managers and Stinton’s engaging style got most people in the audience thinking about their own colleagues and previous injuries.
Stinton explained that the wrist is the most common part of the body to fracture but there was not a lot of research looking at recovery times or the ability to drive safely after the injury.
She shared data from surveys that suggested recovery times could be as short as three months or up to one year, and explained that there were no clear guidelines for employers on what a complete recovery looked like.
So considering that driving is a complex task involving the hand and wrists, the risk of further damage if someone returns to the wheel too soon is high and if an employee stays off the road too long it can impact the productivity of a business.
When Stinton did a straw poll with the audience, the ones that had broken their wrist as an adult said they drove a vehicle before being fully recovered. So in the absence of proper guidelines drivers are making their own decisions without understanding the risks.
Stinton and the team are conducting their research using a driving simulator and comparing the performance of injured and uninjured drivers while also measuring the levels of pain and fatigue.
It’s only early stages but the goal is to provide some guidelines based on empirical data to aid with the recovery of future patients. So hopefully she’ll be back to share the results with AfMA members.
