Sickness Absence in Drivers of London Taxis and Buses

Sickness absence data for periods of 1 week or more among 2385London taxi drivers were analysed over a period of 1 year. Thereasons, in order of decreasing prevalence, were accidents,disorders of bone and movement, circulatory disorders, and respiratorydisorders. In order to place the absence rates of taxi driversin perspective, a comparison over the same year was made withsimilar sickness absence data for the total work force (12 639)of bus drivers for London Transport. It was found that the busdrivers incurred about 3 times as many days of sickness absence(22.1 days per person compared with 65 days for taxi drivers)and 4 times as many spells of absence (0.73 spells per personcompared with 0.16 spells for taxi drivers) as compared withtaxi drivers. The main reason for these differences was consideredto be due to the terms of employment including sick pay arrangementsof the two groups. Accepted        1 August 1981 Requests for reprints should be addressed to: Dr A. R. Erlam, Medical Centre, 201 Hamilton Road, Felixstowe, Suffolk, IP2 7DT.