Truck driver exposure to unhealthy levels of PM in urban pick up and devlievery service

Diesel pollution is well known to be hazardous to human health. Groups at particular risk include workers in diesel industries, including truck drivers.

Our investigation is one of the first to measure truck drivers' exposure levels to diesel soot, or black carbon, inside trucks serving our nation's ports. To do so, we monitored the air inside the cabs of trucks—ranging in age from 1981 to 2006 model years—for an entire work shift serving the Port of Oakland. All of the average black carbon levels measured within the truck cabs were at least 10 times higher than the background level of 0.3 ěg/m3 found in a residential area of Oakland; samples from inside the 1981 truck showed levels of black carbon roughly 25 times higher than the background. These levels are significantly higher than what was previously found along truck corridors near the Port of Oakland and at Port of Oakland terminals, suggesting that diesel exhaust may be accumulating inside the truck cabs.

The amount of black carbon we measured inside the truck cabs was high enough to increase health risks by up to 2,600 excess cancers per million drivers—double the level considered acceptable by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and roughly 2,000 times greater than the level typically considered acceptable by state and federal environmental protection agencies.