The present study aimed to identify both cognitive and non-cognitive psychological measures that may be
significant predictors of work related injuries within the transport industry. Sixty male transport drivers’
participated. The participants were required to complete the Driver Behaviour Inventory (Gulian,
Matthews, Davies & Debney, 1989) the revised edition of the NEO Personality Inventory (Costa &
McCrae, 1992) the Occupational Stress Inventory (Osipow & Spokane, 1992) and the General Health
Questionnaire (Golberg, 1984). As hypothesised those participants who reported higher levels of stress
both lifestyle and occupation related also reported a higher incidence of accidents and reporting of
compensation claims. There was no indication of a relationship between extraversion and/or neuroticism
with increased work injury or reported convictions. Exploratory findings suggest that individuals
presenting more workers compensation claims as a result of injury and driving convictions report higher
levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness and higher levels of excitement seeking. The cognitive
information processing measures included the Inspection Time Task (Vickers, 1970) which is a measure
of early information processing and components of the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (Jackson,
1984) including a set of five performance tasks and one verbal task. As hypothesised those participants
who performed better perceptually and who recorded higher spatial awareness, tend to report less work
related driving accidents. The results are discussed in terms of selection tools and intervention programs
for this ‘at risk industry’.