Pearce said although most mines had programs in place, more buses needed to be provided to take workers home and shorter shifts may also help reduce fatigue-related road accidents.

To service a growing customer demand for coal, most mining operations in the Bowen Basin region operate around the clock, which means miners often make the journey home after a 12-hour shift or longer.

Fatigue is a major contributor to accidents on roads leading out of Queensland mines to bigger centres, with a recent study finding driving with fatigue is comparable to driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.05.

Pearce said that between 2002 and 2006, there were some 5640 crashes that recorded fatigue as a contributing factor in Queensland – 33% of which were serious and 3.6% fatal.

He said there needed to be a commitment from both mining companies and workers to change the culture of driving home tired.

“Changing shift hours from 12 hours to 10 hours would mean workers could be home in the time they would have been awake and working anyway,” Pearce said.

But Dawn Deakin from the Road Accident Action Group told ILN that mining companies were not to blame because each individual has to make a choice about when to rest, drive and take breaks.

RAAG is a not-for-profit community group dedicated to reducing the personal tragedy of deaths and injuries on roads.

“We don’t bring the mines or the shift rosters into the equation because in the end it’s an individual choice. The guys get behind the wheel and they’re tired,” Deakin said.

“A high proportion of the accidents are on the way to work, so it’s what the guys do on their time off as much as what they do when they’re rostered on.

“A lot of the mines are putting buses on which is helping … they have posters up and signs on the way out of the mine which remind people not to drive tired, but in the end it’s the person behind the wheel.”