Although fatal work injuries among truckers dropped 5 percent last year, truck drivers were killed on the job more than any other occupation, according to figures from the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics released this week.

A total of 5,915 fatal work injuries were recorded in 2000, a decline of about 2 percent from 1999, according to the BLS' Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. The decline occurred even though overall employment increased in 2000. The number of job-related deaths from highway incidents, the most frequent fatal work injury, declined for the first time since the fatality census was first conducted in 1992.
Although the number of fatal highway incidents was down about 9 percent from 1999, highway crashes continued to be the leading cause of on-the-job fatalities in 2000, accounting for nearly a quarter of the fatal work injury total. Of the 852 truck drivers killed on the job last year, 70 percent of them were killed in a highway collision. Six percent were killed when struck by an object, 2 percent by homicide and 2 percent from falls, according to the BLS report.
Rates of fatal work injury in 2000 were highest in the mining, agriculture, construction, and transportation industries. The bureau reported 566 people were killed in the trucking and warehousing industry, down from last year's 607. It was unclear whether or not these transportation industry deaths were in addition to those reported for truck drivers as an individual occupation.