Fatal injuries at a 5-year high for driver/sales workers in 2019

Driver/sales workers are delivery drivers who also have sales responsibilities. Some driver/sales workers use their own vehicles to deliver goods to customers, such as takeout food, and accept payment for those goods. From 2015 to 2019, 334 driver/sales workers in the United States lost their lives while working. In 2019 alone, 83 driver/sales workers died on the job, the highest number for this occupation in the last 5 years. Of the 83 deaths in 2019, 60 (72.3 percent) resulted from transportation incidents, and another 14 (16.9 percent) resulted from intentional injuries by a person (homicide or suicide).

In addition to fatal work injuries, driver/sales workers incurred an estimated 8,020 nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses resulting in days away from work to recuperate in 2019. Falls on the same level accounted for 23.7 percent (1,900 cases) of these cases. Another 11.7 percent (940) of these cases were due to roadway incidents involving motorized land vehicles. Overexertion in lifting or lowering (720 cases) and being struck by an object (720 cases) each accounted for another 9.0 percent.

These data are from the Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities program. Data from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries include private sector and government workers (federal, state, local, foreign, and other government workers). Nonfatal data from the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses include private sector and state and local government workers.