Transport sector injury insights report 2025

Introduction to our data

The ACC ShopCare Dashboard makes work-related health and safety injury data more accessible using interactive dashboards and insights. Read more about our data sets in this Data & Insights Explanatory Notes document here.

About this report

ShopCare has analysed ACC claims data from 2023 to 2025 for the transport sector (road, rail, air and maritime), alongside Stats NZ workforce and business statistics for transport, postal and warehousing, and international road safety research, to show where harm is happening, where progress is being made, and where the best opportunities for improvement lie.

Transport carries a distinct risk profile within ShopCare supply chain remit. Alongside the manual handling and slip-and-trip hazards common to warehousing and logistics work, it’s the only sector we cover where a good-sized share of harm occurs on the road, which contributes to everything in this report.

The sector at a glance

New Zealand’s transport, postal and warehousing sector employs approximately 100,860 people across around 17,097 enterprises, as at 2025.¹

Sector dominated by small operators:

• nearly nine in 10 businesses have fewer than six employees or are self-employed.
• less than 150 businesses employ 100 people or more.¹

The workforce is heavily male: men hold the large majority of full-time roles in transport, postal and warehousing.¹

Business churn is high:

• In the year to February 2025, 2,250 new transport businesses opened, but 2,544 closed, a net loss of around 294 and the first year since 2022 where closures have outpaced openings.¹
• Of businesses started in 2019, only three in 10 were still operating six years later, with most closures happening in the first two to three years.¹

The sector contributed $5.1 billion in gross operating surplus and $3.6 billion in employee compensation to GDP in the 2024 financial year, both up on 2023.¹

The 2023 – 2025 headlines

ACC injury claim volumes have fallen, but the transport sector is spending more per claim, as total claim costs increase.

• New claims have fallen 12.7% since 2023, yet the average cost per claim has risen 14.2% over the same period.
• Weekly compensation claims have barely moved (2,871 in 2023, 2,889 in 2025), meaning 44.5% of injuries now involve lost time, up from 38.6% in 2023. Lost time claims are those where an injury is serious enough that the worker cannot return to their normal duties and ACC pays weekly compensation, essentially replacing their income while they recover.

These are the most significant claims in the dataset and the clearest indicator of whether serious workplace harm is genuinely reducing. Fewer injuries overall, but the ones that happen are more costly and more disruptive.2

Total active claims costs peaked at $87.5 million in 2024 before easing to $84.4 million in 2025, an early sign that costs may be stabilising, though they remain 4.2% above 2023 levels.²

Several factors likely contribute to rising costs. Health system pressures, including wait times for specialists, surgery and imaging, may extend claim duration. Healthcare cost inflation is also a factor. The result is a sector spending more per injury even as injury numbers fall.

On the road versus off the road: why transport is different

On-road claims made up just 3.4% of the sector’s active claims in 2025, but 10.2% of its total active claims cost.² The average cost of an on-road claim was $22,739 in 2025, three times the sector-wide average of $7,523. Average time off work for an on-road claim was 92 days, more than two and a half times the sector average of 36 days.²

These figures likely understate true on-road risk. ACC classifies claims through separate levy accounts, the Work Account (linked to employer and industry) and the Motor Vehicle Account (funded through petrol excise and vehicle licensing, not linked to occupation), so on-road harm is less reliably attached to a worker’s industry than on-site harm.³ And even the on-road claims captured here only measure harm to the worker, not total crash harm: in collisions between vehicles of different mass, the heavier vehicle’s occupants are far more likely to walk away.⁴

Most deaths in truck crashes, in New Zealand and internationally, are people in the other vehicle, not the truck driver.^4,5 Injuries and fatalities to other road users in a crash, with a vehicle being used for work, would be recorded in the ACC road account, not the work account. The nature of on-road harm: incidents are far less frequent, but when something goes wrong on the road, it tends to be serious. Off-road claims, loading, warehousing, yard work, are far more numerous but on average considerably less severe. The leading causes differ too: loss of vehicle control, loss of balance in a moving vehicle, and lurching or jerking movements dominate on-road weekly compensation costs, while lifting, carrying, and loss of balance on foot dominate off-road causes. Effective prevention has to address both, with different controls for each.

Cost snapshot

The cost of injury is not evenly distributed. Looking at the data by age, gender and ethnicity reveals patterns consistent with what ShopCare has found across retail and manufacturing, and some that are distinct to transport.

Age: the 30–69 squeeze

Workers aged 30–49 account for 39.8% of new claims but 45.4% of active claims costs ($38.3 million) and 46.6% of weekly compensation costs ($29.3 million).² Combined with the 50–69 age band, workers aged 30 to 69 make up 75.2% of new claims but 86.7% of active claims costs and 88.2% of weekly compensation costs.² This mirrors the pattern ShopCare has found in retail and manufacturing sectors, that  claims among workers in their peak working years are more  frequent,  more expensive and more likely to need full rehabilitation

Gender: a heavily male workforce, and injuries follow

Men hold the large majority of transport, postal and warehousing jobs. Within the transport sector’s ACC claims, men carry the large majority of the injury burden: 84.2% of new claims, 87.2% of active claims, and 89.9% of active claims costs in 2025.² Female new claims made up 15.7% of the sector total but only 9.9% of costs. This may indicate that women are concentrated in lower-risk roles within the sector, though the smaller sample size means these conclusions should be treated with some caution.

Ethnicity: disproportionate harm to Māori workers

Māori workers account for 15.6% of new transport sector claims in 2025, yet carry 18.7% of active claims costs ($15.8 million) and 19.7% of weekly compensation costs ($12.4 million).² A group carrying a larger cost share than its claim share is a pattern ShopCare has also found in retail and manufacturing sectors. The ACC data alone cannot explain why, with possible contributing factors including concentration in higher-risk roles, differences in injury severity, or barriers to early access to treatment that extend recovery time. Each explanation carries different implications for prevention, and each deserves further investigation.

Pacifika workers carried a broadly proportionate share of cost relative to claims (8.1% of cost versus 10.3% of new claims), a somewhat different pattern to the cost burden ShopCare identified for Pacifika workers in retail.²

Understanding injury sites and causes

Back and spine injuries dominate transport sector harm, just as they do in retail and manufacturing. Shoulder injuries are the second most costly site. Together, these two body sites account for 37.4% of all active claims costs in the sector.²

Source: ShopCare ACC transport claims data, 2025.

Head and face injuries are the highest-volume site (2,807 active claims) but carry a comparatively low cost per claim, at under $3,000 on average, consistent with a high number of minor knocks and cuts rather than serious harm.2

Causes tell a similar story. Lifting, carrying and straining, and loss of balance or personal control, are between them responsible for over half of all new claims (53.7%) and over half of all active claims costs (53.4%) in 2025.2 Twisting movement rounds out the top three causes by new claim volume.

A cause worth watching separately is coded ‘work property or characteristics’, a broad category that may possibly include psychosocial and work environment conditions. It generated the third-highest active claims cost in the sector ($8.9 million, 10.6% of the total) despite a lower new-claim count, suggesting these claims tend to be complex or slow to resolve.2

Sub-sector divergence

Treating transport as a single sector obscures real differences among its subsectors. Road Transport is by far the largest sub-sector, accounting for 62.8% of active claims sector-wide in 2025, and also carries the highest average cost per claim of the major sub-sectors.2

Source: ShopCare ACC transport claims data, 2025.

Road Transport’s combination of high volume and high average cost per claim means it drives the overall sector numbers, and it is where prevention effort is best targeted. Maritime Transport, despite far lower claim volumes, has the second-highest average cost per claim, which is worth further attention given the physically demanding nature of dock and vessel work.²

Implementing effective controls

The evidence base points clearly to which controls are most effective for the injury types that dominate transport sector claims, and to the road safety measures that reduce on-road harm. The following hierarchy starts with the strongest interventions and works down.

Elimination

• Remove unnecessary manual handling by using mechanical aids for loading and unloading, rather than manual lifting and carrying, the single largest cause of new claims sector wide.
• Reduce unnecessary reversing. Apply a journey-necessity check and, where practical, redesign site layouts so vehicles do not need to reverse at all. Site design is the strongest control for reversing risk, which international fleet claims data links to around one in five heavy commercial vehicle insurance claims, and to a significant share of work-vehicle deaths.⁶
• Naturalistic driving research suggests the highest-risk period may be the first hour of a shift, not the last, which points to building in a lower-demand transition period at shift start rather than focusing only on the trip home.⁷

Engineering controls

• Specify electronic stability control as standard on all fleet vehicles. It is the one vehicle safety technology with strong, consistent, real-world crash-reduction evidence, and it is particularly valuable for higher-centre-of-gravity vehicles such as vans, utes and light trucks common in logistics fleets.⁸
• Where reversing cannot be eliminated, fit cameras, proximity sensors and audible alarms, and mark vehicles for maximum visibility using a white base colour with fluorescent and retroreflective markings.^6,9
• Install mechanical lifting aids, adjustable pallet carousels and height-adjustable transfer points to reduce back and shoulder loading during loading and unloading. Adjustable lifting geometry has been shown to cut peak spinal compression by more than half compared with lifting from a fixed floor pallet.¹⁰

Administrative controls

• Introduce telematics with structured driver feedback and coaching, not monitoring alone. Evidence from heavy vehicle fleets shows unsafe driving events falling by around half when telematics is paired with coaching and a clear management response. Monitoring without a feedback loop shows little to no effect: controlled studies have found in-cab warning lights alone do not significantly reduce risky driving, while coaching roughly halves the odds of risky driving and cuts unbelted driving by more than three-quarters.^11,12
• Build a near-miss reporting system with clear, non-punitive reporting and visible follow-up. Underreporting is the biggest barrier to these systems working, and a simple, blame-free process makes the biggest difference to reporting rates.
• Review delivery schedules and payment structures for unrealistic time pressure. WorkSafe has explicitly linked unrealistic delivery schedules and unpaid idle time to speeding and unsafe driving.¹³
• Set and enforce a drug and alcohol policy, and don’t overlook prescription and over-the-counter medication as a fitness-to-drive risk.¹⁴

Personal protective measures and individual practices

• Provide slip-resistant, high-grip footwear for yard and depot work. This is one of the best-evidenced controls in the research: a randomised controlled trial found grip-rated footwear in another sector cut slips by over a third and slip-related falls by around half, with the largest benefit for workers aged 60 and over.¹⁵ Pair footwear with manual handling training, but don’t rely on training alone. Controlled trials have consistently found lifting-technique training does not, by itself, reduce back injury rates. It works as a complement to engineering controls such as mechanical lifting aids, not a substitute for them.¹⁶
• Treat hands-free phone use as equally risky as hand-held. The evidence is clear that a phone conversation while driving is a cognitive distraction, not a manual one, so hands-free rules alone do not remove the risk.¹⁷
• Encourage early reporting of discomfort and pain before it becomes a claim, supported by ShopCare Early Notification and Intervention of Discomfort or Pain guidance.

Heavy freight drivers: the sector’s single biggest cost driver

Heavy truck drivers are the single largest contributor of injury cost across the whole industry. In 2025, heavy truck drivers accounted for 35.3% of the sector’s active claims but 50.2% of its active claims cost, $42.3 million out of $84.4 million sector-wide, and 45.1% of all weekly compensation claims.2

Heavy truck drivers also have a lost-time rate well above the sector average. In 2025, 56.6% of new claims among heavy truck drivers involved lost time, up from 50.2% in 2023, a faster deterioration than the sector as a whole. The average cost per claim rose 14.8% over the same period, to $10,705, with average days off climbing to 49, both well above the sector-wide averages of $7,523 and 36 days.2

Where the ACC cost concentrates: on-site, not on the road

Of the total active claims cost for heavy truck drivers in 2025, 84.8% relates to injuries recorded on-site, not on the road: loading and unloading, working around the yard, getting in and out of the cab. Only 15.2% of cost, and 5.5% of claims, is coded as occurring on the road itself.2

This isn’t a uniquely New Zealand pattern. International research on commercial vehicle drivers finds falls from the vehicle account for around a fifth to a quarter of work-related injuries in trucking, with the truck cab the single most common location, and mounting or dismounting the cab responsible for close to a quarter of all injuries serious enough to require time away from work.18

The leading causes for heavy truck drivers reflect this. Loss of balance or personal control, and lifting, carrying and straining, are the two largest cost drivers, together accounting for well over $17 million in active claims costs in 2025, more than five times the cost attributed to loss of control of a vehicle. Shoulder and back/spine injuries are the leading injury sites, followed by head and face injuries, which are high in volume but lower in average severity.2

As explained earlier in this report, these on-road figures likely understate real risk to drivers, and capture only harm to the driver, not total crash harm. That doesn’t make the on-site injury data less real: loss of balance, lifting and cab entry/exit remain large, well-evidenced, directly preventable cost drivers.

Who carries the cost: age, ethnicity and gender

The 30-to-69 age concentration seen sector-wide is even sharper for heavy truck drivers. This age band accounts for 83.1% of new claims but 89.2% of new claims costs, and 86.1% of active claims but 91.1% of active claims costs, in 2025.2

The disproportionate cost burden carried by Māori workers is also more pronounced in this occupation than in the sector as a whole. Māori heavy truck drivers made up 16.2% of new claims in 2025 but 21.0% of active claims costs, a wider gap than the sector average of 15.6% of new claims versus 18.7% of active claims costs.2

The occupation is overwhelmingly male: men accounted for 93.9% of new claims and 93.9% of active claims costs in 2025. The smaller group of female heavy truck drivers, 208 active claims, had a noticeably higher average cost per claim, $12,455 compared with $10,607 for men, though the small sample size means this should be treated with caution.2

What the research says works preventing injury

• Cab entry and exit is a specific, under-addressed risk. Vehicle safety research consistently points to poor step and handhold design, not driver error, as the root cause: an evaluation of semi-truck cabs against safety standards found none had an adequate three-point-contact system for getting in and out, and studies comparing descent techniques found facing the truck while using every step and handrail produces significantly less spinal impact. The strongest fix engineers out the risky option altogether, for example a retrofitted handle that only allows exit via proper three-point contact, rather than relying on drivers to follow a safe procedure they can otherwise bypass.¹⁹
• Lifting, carrying and loss of balance are the two biggest cost drivers for heavy truck drivers, and the evidence here is clear about what doesn’t work as well as what does. Controlled trials have repeatedly found that lifting-technique training alone does not reduce back injury rates. What works is changing the load and the geometry of the lift: keeping single-lift loads and using adjustable pallet or transfer equipment, has been shown to cut spinal compression and injury symptom reporting substantially.^16,10
• Slip-resistant footwear is one of the most rigorously tested controls for yard-foot injuries, backed by randomised controlled trial evidence showing a reduction in slips of over a third and in slip-related falls of around half. The benefit was concentrated in older workers, which matters here.¹⁵
• Fatigue is a major, well-evidenced risk for professional drivers. International crash investigation data attributes more than half of single-vehicle heavy truck crashes to driver fatigue, and shift workers driving home after a night shift show sleepiness levels equivalent to a blood alcohol level well above the legal driving limit.¹⁷ Naturalistic driving studies have found the highest-risk period is often the first hour of driving, not the last, consistent with the risk of driving home tired after a night shift. Roster design that avoids the highest-risk fatigue windows, rather than relying on drivers to self-manage, is the strongest available control.⁷

Endnotes

1  Stats NZ. (2025). Transporting and Warehousing statistics and demographics. Compiled by ShopCare Charitable Trust via figure.nz.

2  ShopCare. (2023-2025). ACC transport claims data dashboards. ShopCare Charitable Trust.

3  ACC. (2025). Our levies: Paying levies if you own or drive a vehicle. The Motor Vehicle levy is collected via petrol excise and vehicle licensing and is not linked to industry classification, unlike the Work Account levy paid by employers. acc.co.nz.

4  Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). (2025). Large trucks. Of 4,354 people who died in crashes involving large trucks in the United States in 2023, 16% were truck occupants, 65% were passenger vehicle occupants and 17% were pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcyclists. iihs.org/research-areas/large-trucks.

5  Ministry of Transport (NZ). (2025). Truck fact sheet, Safety — Annual statistics. 37 fatal crashes and 47 deaths involving trucks in 2024, based on Crash Analysis System data extracted 16 September 2025. transport.govt.nz.

6  Murray W. Improving reversing (backing) safety of fleet vehicles. Interactive Driving Systems / Virtual Risk Manager.

7  Hanowski R, Olson RL, Bocanegra JL, Hickman J. (2008). Analysis of Risk as a Function of Driving-Hour: Assessment of Driving-Hours 1 Through 11.

8  Mehler B, Reimer B, Lavalliere M, Dobres J, Coughlin JF. (2014). Evaluating Technologies Relevant to the Enhancement of Driver Safety. AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

9  Logan DB. (2016). Guidelines for Vehicle Safety Markings for Fleet Vehicles. Monash University Accident Research Centre; and TRL. (2020). PPR968: Assisting the update of INDG382: Vehicle technologies.

10  Ramsey T, Davis K, Kotowski S, et al. (2014). Reduction of Spinal Loads Through Adjustable Interventions at the Origin and Destination of Palletizing Tasks. Human Factors; and Wurzelbacher S, Lampl M, Bertke S, Tseng C-Y. (2020). The effectiveness of ergonomic interventions in material handling operations. Applied Ergonomics.

11  Kwan Q, Boodlal L. (2014). Impact of a Telematics System on Safe and Fuel-Efficient Driving in Trucks. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

12  Bell J, Taylor M, Chen GX, et al. (2016). Evaluation of an in-vehicle monitoring system (IVMS) to reduce risky driving behaviors in commercial drivers. Journal of Safety Research.

13  Oldham K, Mills J. (2020). A cross-portfolio consideration of interventions impacting transport safety outcomes. NZ Transport Agency research report 668.

14  NRMA. (2024). Driving high: The need to detect drug drivers. Road Safety Series.

15  Cockayne S, Fairhurst C, Frost G, et al. (2021). Slip-resistant footwear reduces slips among National Health Service workers in England: a randomised controlled trial. Occupational and Environmental Medicine; and Frost G, Liddle M, Cockayne S, et al. (2022). Relationship between age, workplace slips and the effectiveness of slip-resistant footwear among healthcare workers. Injury Prevention.

16  Charlton RC. (2008). Effect of training and lifting equipment for preventing back pain in lifting and handling: systematic review. British Medical Journal.

17  Williamson A, Lombardi DA, Folkard S, Stutts J, Courtney TK, Connor JL. (2011). The link between fatigue and safety. Accident Analysis and Prevention; and Di Milia L. (2006). Shift work, sleepiness and long distance driving. Transportation Research Part F.

18  Shorti R, Merryweather A, Thiese M, et al. (2014). Fall Risk Factors for Commercial Truck Drivers. Journal of Ergonomics; and Kim KH, Reed M. (2016). Falls from Commercial Vehicles: Safety Research, Control, and Practice.

19  Wells A, McGann K, Parmigiani J. (2020). Semi-Truck Driver Safe Egress Analysis and Renovation. Volume 14: Safety Engineering, Risk, and Reliability Analysis; and Patenaude S, Marchand D, Samperi S, Belanger M. (2001). The effect of the descent technique and truck cabin layout on the landing impact forces. Applied Ergonomics.

Disclaimer: This document is intended to provide general information and guidance and is not intended to address specific circumstances of any individual or entity in New Zealand. It is based on research and practices as understood at the time of publication and may include AI-assisted information. Advice or guidance provided by ShopCare does not constitute legal advice. Legal advice should be sought to ensure compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and any other applicable statutes or regulations. ShopCare does not accept any responsibility or liability for any direct or indirect losses or damage. You are free to copy, distribute and adapt this material, as long as you attribute it to ShopCare Charitable Trust.