Don't wait for accidents — possibilities to assess risk in traffic by applying the ‘Wiener Fahrprobe’

In Vienna during more than 10 years of research work a special traffic behaviour observation method has been developed, evaluated and applied by Risser et al. in the frame of many different traffic safety projects. Car drivers are accompanied by two observers who register not only errors in behaviour of drivers but also their communication and interaction with other road users. Malfunction of communication and interaction are judged as main sources for problems for danger in traffic. For example, if they lead to a bad traffic climate fealings of discomfort, anger and frustration will prevent cooperative actions of road users. Being able to recognize such negative or dangerous interaction patterns in time it seems to be easier to protect road users — most often the ‘unprotected’ ones — from getting involved in accidents. This contribution gives an impression about theory and practice of the observation method and shows results of different studies, where the method called ‘Wiener Fahrprobe’ has been applied. Furthermore it will show how the method and its results can be used in the frame of the European traffic (safety) research projects ‘PROMETHEUS’ and ‘DRIVE’. Till now no accident data exist in respect to new RTI systems. Therefore it seems to be important to have a sophisticated social-psychological method for testing the behaviour and interaction of road users in connection with these systems. This is a necessary prediction for deciding whether the systems are socially compatible or not.     

Safety climate, attitudes and risk perception in Norsk Hydro

The aims of this paper are to test mental images of risk and to present some results of a survey of safety climate, employee attitudes, risk perception and behaviour among employees within the industrial company Norsk Hydro. Two mental images were tested. They are both based on the assumption that it is possible to make a distinction between cognitive and affective processes involved in risk perception. The first model was the ‘rationalistic’ approach, which assumes that the affective component of risk perception is influenced by cognitive judgements. The justification for the second model is found in Zajonc's [Zajonc, R.B., 1980. Feeling and thinking. Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist 35 (2), 151–175] conclusion that emotions are precognitive. In this model, entitled the ‘mental imagery’ approach, emotion is seen as the driving force affecting cognition of risk and safety. Employees at 13 plants have answered a self-completion questionnaire. The plants belonged to the agricultural, aluminium, magnesium and petrochemical divisions within Norsk Hydro. A total of 731 respondents replied to the questionnaire. The mental imagery approach was somewhat better fitted to the data than a rationalistic approach. Safety climate and employee attitudes towards safety and accident prevention contributed significantly to the variance in employee occupational risk behaviour. Worry and the extent to which the employee felt safe/unsafe was the most important predictor for the cognitive judgement of risk. Acceptability of rule violations seemed to be the most important predictor of behaviour, probably because acceptability also affected how often the respondents took chances and broke safety rules.     

What is most important for safety climate: The company belonging or the local working environment? – A study from the Norwegian offshore industry

Obtaining knowledge about factors affecting health, safety and environment (HSE) is of major interest to the petroleum industry, but there is currently a severe shortage of relevant studies. The aim of this study was to examine the relative influence of offshore installation (local working environment) and company belonging on employees’ opinions concerning occupational health and safety. We analyzed data from a safety climate survey answered by 4479 Norwegian offshore petroleum employees in 2005 on the dimensions “Safety prioritisation”, “Safety management and involvement”, “Safety versus production”, “Individual motivation”, “System comprehension” and “Competence” using one way analysis of variance (ANOVA), effect size and mixed model. The companies differed significantly for “Safety prioritisation”, “Safety versus production”, “Individual motivation”, “System comprehension” and “Competence”. The local offshore installation explained more of the safety climate than the company they were employed in or worked for did.     

The Merseyside Accident Information Model (MAIM) can reveal components of accidents that lead to attendance at fracture clinics and cause disability: a new approach to accident prevention

The objectives of this study were to identify components of accidents that cause the most disability and to discover the principal sources of injuries treated in the fracture clinics. Patients attending fracture clinics of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital were interviewed using a portable computer-based questionnaire, the Merseyside Accident Information Model (MAIM). Patients were followed up by telephone interview or letter to enquire about disability continuing after discharge. Disability was measured by the pre-accident to post-discharge changes in scores for 11 normal functions. Of the 1326 patients interviewed, 900 (68%) were successfully followed up and 37% reported disability after discharge. First events ‘tripping’, ‘slipping’ and ‘other underfoot events’ accounted for 433 patients (194 reporting disability), and ‘collapsed/fainted — no other event' for 66 patients (27 reporting disability). Activities at the time of accident most frequently associated with disability involved moving about on foot. Among first event objects, ground surfaces and underfoot hazards were reported in 35%. Sources of injuries included underfoot accidents (48%), sport (13%), and transport accidents (12%.). Underfoot accidents contributed to 58% of patients reporting disability, sport 6% and transport accidents 11%. Underfoot accidents together with ‘collapsed/fainted — no other event’ accounted for 79% of female patients reporting disability and 50% of men. Such data could be used for cost-effective targeting of preventative measures, and to study the effectiveness of accident prevention initiatives.     

Application of a predictive safety model in a combustion testing environment

A predictive safety model for accident prevention and system failure, called Continuous Hazard Tracking and Failure Prediction Methodology, is applied at the Marshall Space Flight Center's promoted combustion test chamber. It combines the underlying principles of work sampling, control charts, and multivariate analysis. The sampling is performed to observe the occurrence of conditions which may be becoming hazardous in a given system. These building blocks of hazards, which we have called dendritics, could result in an accident, system malfunction, or unacceptable risk conditions. The data collected is plotted to generate the appropriate control chart, which depends on the characteristics of the given system and the protection desired. Based on the pattern of the control chart, a system ‘under control’ is not disturbed whereas a system ‘out of control’ is investigated for potential conditions becoming hazardous. Then appropriate steps are taken to eliminate or control these conditions in order to maintain a desired safety status of the system. The continuously running characteristic of this model allows for the verification that the corrective measures taken to ameliorate the ‘out of control’ conditions were satisfactory or whether more proactive action is required. The results provided by the predictive model were validated with historical safety data.     

Working in small enterprises – Is there a special risk?

Ownership structure is an important factor. For independent enterprises, the ergonomic, physical and chemical work environment is more hazardous in small enterprises than in large ones. For enterprises that are part of a larger organization, the work environment tends to be more hazardous in large enterprises when controlling for the same factors. For the psychosocial factors, the trend is different – better in small than in large enterprises independent of ownership. In all enterprises, both public and private, the quality of health and safety management systems and workplace assessment is remarkably higher in large than in small enterprises.These differences in work environment for small and large enterprises have been studied in the ‘Danish Work Environment Cohort Study’ and ‘Surveillance of health and safety activities in enterprises’. These datasets are linked together to a reliable database with data on work environment and enterprises including size, ownership structure, and health and safety management.     

Bifocal/varifocal spectacles, lighting and missed-step accidents

Good lighting and the correct use of spectacles generally improve vision and presumably reduce the risk of accidents. However, bifocal and varifocal spectacles can increase the risk of misjudging distances when negotiating underfoot hazards. In some circumstances, the portion of the lens used for close work may inadvertently be used where accurate judgement of distance is necessary. This paper reports results from two studies of patient interviews using the Merseyside Accident Information Model; the first a study of accidents which occurred during paid employment (1504 cases) and the second of 1326 accidents mainly in domestic and leisure activities. Underfoot accidents were identified by the first unforeseen event perceived by the patient. The relationship between underfoot events and the type of spectacles worn by the patient at the time of accident was analysed. In both studies there was a significant association between accidents where the first event was ‘missed edge of’ (step) and wearing bifocal/varifocal spectacles. Corporal movements reported in both studies indicated that ‘stepping down’ when wearing bifocal/varifocal spectacles, increased the risk of ‘missed edge’ accidents. In the work environment corporal movements associated with manual handling of loads also increased the risk of ‘missed edge’ accidents when wearing bifocal/varifocal spectacles.     

What-You-Look-For-Is-What-You-Find – The consequences of underlying accident models in eight accident investigation manuals

Accident investigation manuals are influential documents on various levels in a safety management system, and it is therefore important to appraise them in the light of what we currently know – or assume – about the nature of accidents. Investigation manuals necessarily embody or represent an accident model, i.e., a set of assumptions about how accidents happen and what the important factors are. In this paper we examine three aspects of accident investigation as described in a number of investigation manuals. Firstly, we focus on accident models and in particular the assumptions about how different factors interact to cause – or prevent – accidents, i.e., the accident “mechanisms”. Secondly, we focus on the scope in the sense of the factors (or factor domains) that are considered in the models – for instance (hu)man, technology, and organization (MTO). Thirdly, we focus on the system of investigation or the activities that together constitute an accident investigation project/process. We found that the manuals all used complex linear models. The factors considered were in general (hu)man, technology, organization, and information. The causes found during an investigation reflect the assumptions of the accident model, following the ‘What-You-Look-For-Is-What-You-Find’ or WYLFIWYF principle. The identified causes typically became specific problems to be fixed during an implementation of solutions. This follows what can be called ‘What-You-Find-Is-What-You-Fix’ or WYFIWYF principle.     

Density, velocity and flow relationships for closely packed crowds

Work undertaken to quantify the relationships between crowd velocities, flow rates and densities for uni-directional motion is reviewed. Most of the available data has been generated for underground stations in the UK; similar work for commuter stations in Japan is introduced and developed. Maximum observed flow rates from this work are compared with those suggested in the ‘Green Guide’ for the evacuation of sports grounds. The ‘Green Guide’ figures are higher than the maximum values obtained from the work reviewed.     

Numerical simulation of the large-scale malignant environmental pollution incident

With the development of economy, the expansion in industrial production resulted in the increase in the number of malignant environmental pollution incidents. The dispersion of toxic gaseous materials was chosen for study in detail, which took the ‘12.23’ Kaixian blowout accident in Chongqing as an example. This paper firstly reviewed the ‘12.23’ Kaixian blowout accident. Then, the physical boundary conditions including initial conditions were outlined to form an integrated mathematical problem. Thirdly, the blowout accident was simulated for a period of 5 h. In term of criteria for acute poisoning, simulation results were analyzed using the concentration slices that can serve for the decision-making. Finally, based on the analysis of simulation result, four important conclusions were put forward that can be used for the design of emergency evacuation routes.     

Home based workers at risk: Outworkers and occupational health and safety

Outwork is work done for payment at, about or from home. Outworkers generally work under conditions which are less favourable that those of their counterparts doing similar work ‘on site’. There are significant occupational health and safety issues associated with outwork. Terms and conditions of work (e.g. rate of pay, hours of work, degree of worker control over the work process, legislative coverage etc.) will significantly influence health and safety outcomes for outworkers. The paper addresses these more general issues as well as detailing specific workplace hazards and injuries, and other health impacts arising from the work.     

Coping with accelerating socio-technical systems

In 1997 a workshop was held on the subject of how to cope with accelerating technologies. These are industries such as aviation, air traffic control and biotechnology, amongst others, where the rate of technological development is significant. A number of papers were presented from a range of viewpoints and in a variety of different industrial contexts. The papers ranged from theoretical models to help understand the process of acceleration and its impact on organisational learning, to practical analyses of future potential risks in specific accelerating industries such as air traffic control. The aim of the papers and the workshop as a whole was to provide insight into the problems associated with accelerating technologies, and thereby derive measures to control or cope with such acceleration. The problems arising from acceleration, as predicted by the theoretical models and evidenced by experiences in accelerating industries (e.g. aviation) are manifold. Two examples of particular problems are unforeseen risks in an industry (a lack of forward vision), and a failure to learn adequately (i.e. in time) from incidents occurring in an organisation (a lack of constructive hindsight). There is also an incipient danger of society being driven by technology rather than being led by social needs. Even if each technology ultimately becomes ‘ultra-safe’, it will nevertheless have its own ‘event horizon’, limiting useful further progress. Each of the papers from the workshop is summarised and integrated into a three-part synopsis of the workshop. This covers the context of accelerating technologies, modelling their impacts, and deriving coping strategies. Four of the papers are included in their entirety as separate papers in their own right in this special issue of Safety Science.     

Carbon capture and storage-desirability from a risk management point of view

Environmental and safety risks related to carbon capture and storage concern leakages and accidental releases during transport and geological storage. Based on principles widely accepted in the EU and beyond in the discussion about the where’s and why’s of nuclear waste repositories, this paper discusses the desirability of carbon capture and storage from a risk management point of view, focusing on environmental risks on the global level (climate change). On this basis it is concluded that, if the key energy issue of coming generations, not just in Europe but all around the world, is not the abundance of fossil resources but rather an unacceptably high probability of global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, then the solution should not include any massive hiding of the emissions but entirely focus on the avoidance based on improved technology in power plants and other industrial installations.     

Acute exposure to chemicals during ‘do-it-yourself’ activities: survey of enquiries to the Swedish Poisons Information Centre in 1996

In 1996 the Swedish Poisons Information Centre performed a follow-up study concerning poisonings related to ‘do-it-yourself’ activities. The study was supported by the National Institute of Public Health in Sweden. The objectives were to investigate and define monthly variations, route of exposure, type of products and, in particular, exposures to corrosives, age and sex groups, place of treatment, severity of symptoms, place of the accident, special risk products and risk situations. The Poisons Information Centre was contacted concerning 1609 cases, with a peak during the summer months. There was no or uncertain connection between exposure and symptoms in 117 cases. This means that 1492 cases were left to study. Inhalation and eye exposure were the predominant routes, followed by skin exposure and ingestion. Cleaning agents were the most common type of products involved. Of the 1492 cases included in the study 1033 were possible to follow up. Among these, 20–29 year olds and 30–39 year olds predominated, and there was a dominance for men. In total, 28% of those exposed were subject to medical attention, either in hospital or in outpatient clinics. According to the Poisoning Severity Score 78% had mild (grade 1) and 7% moderate (grade 2) symptoms. There were no severe intoxications and no deaths. Severity grade 2 occurred 3.6 times more often among those with exposures involving risk of corrosive damage than among others in the study population. Most accidents occurred in the home. Special risk products and risk situations were exposure to corrosive products, release of chlorine when mixing hypochlorite and acid, ‘fire-eating’, siphoning gasoline and diesel fuel, welding, and inhalation of carbon monoxide from exhaust gases. The Swedish Poisons Information Centre registered 1609 cases of poisoning accidents during ‘do-it-yourself’ activities, which means an average of four to five cases per day. Although this type of accidents is not uncommon, significant poisoning seems to be rare. Some special risk situations were identified.     

The predictive validity of safety climate

PROBLEM: Safety professionals have increasingly turned their attention to social science for insight into the causation of industrial accidents. One social construct, safety climate, has been examined by several researchers [Cooper, M. D., & Phillips, R. A. (2004). Exploratory analysis of the safety climate and safety behavior relationship. Journal of Safety Research, 35(5), 497-512; Gillen, M., Baltz, D., Gassel, M., Kirsch, L., & Vacarro, D. (2002). Perceived safety climate, job Demands, and coworker support among union and nonunion injured construction workers. Journal of Safety Research, 33(1), 33-51; Neal, A., & Griffin, M. A. (2002). Safety climate and safety behaviour. Australian Journal of Management, 27, 66-76; Zohar, D. (2000). A group-level model of safety climate: Testing the effect of group climate on microaccidents in manufacturing jobs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(4), 587-596; Zohar, D., & Luria, G. (2005). A multilevel model of safety climate: Cross-level relationships between organization and group-level climates. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(4), 616-628] who have documented its importance as a factor explaining the variation of safety-related outcomes (e.g., behavior, accidents). Researchers have developed instruments for measuring safety climate and have established some degree of psychometric reliability and validity. The problem, however, is that predictive validity has not been firmly established, which reduces the credibility of safety climate as a meaningful social construct. The research described in this article addresses this problem and provides additional support for safety climate as a viable construct and as a predictive indicator of safety-related outcomes. METHODS: This study used 292 employees at three locations of a heavy manufacturing organization to complete the 16 item Zohar Safety Climate Questionnaire (ZSCQ) [Zohar, D., & Luria, G. (2005). A multilevel model of safety climate: Cross-level relationships between organization and group-level climates. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(4), 616-628]. In addition, safety behavior and accident experience data were collected for 5 months following the survey and were statistically analyzed (structural equation modeling, confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis, etc.) to identify correlations, associations, internal consistency, and factorial structures. RESULTS: Results revealed that the ZSCQ: (a) was psychometrically reliable and valid, (b) served as an effective predictor of safety-related outcomes (behavior and accident experience), and (c) could be trimmed to an 11 item survey with little loss of explanatory power. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: Practitioners and researchers can use the ZSCQ with reasonable certainty of the questionnaire's reliability and validity. This provides a solid foundation for the development of meaningful organizational interventions and/or continued research into social factors affecting industrial accident experience.     

Global process safety incidents in the pharmaceutical industry

The objective of this research is to analyse global process safety incidents within the pharmaceutical industry in terms of their consequences and factors contributing to the incidents. There were 73 process safety incidents leading to 108 fatalities found between 1985 and 2019. Trends between the number of incidents, number of fatalities, location, and contributing factors were identified and summarized. The most reported fatalities occurred in 2018 & 2019. 83% of fatalities occurred in China and India. Explosions were associated with 71% of incidents, which resulted in 89% of fatalities. For most of the international incidents, incident investigations were not available and thus insufficient details were available to determine the causes. Contributing factors were available or estimated from available data for about half of the incidents, with the following most common: hazard awareness & identification; operating procedures; design; safeguards, controls & layers of protection; safety culture; and preventive maintenance. These findings can be used as a basis to improve process safety performance in the pharmaceutical industry.     

Making sense of invulnerability at work—a qualitative study of police drivers

This paper reports a qualitative study of 54 police drivers who were interviewed about their views on police driver training, driving strategies and their accident involvement. Study of the transcribed interviews indicated that officers constructed narratives of themselves as being highly aware of hazards presented by other road users and they used a variety of discursive devices to minimise their own culpability and attribute risk elsewhere. Rather than maintaining a straightforward ‘illusion of invulnerability’ they were formulating a ‘topography of risk’ in which they were responding to hazards presented by suspects or other road users. Their meticulously detailed accounts of the circumstances surrounding accidents serve to place them as knowledgeable and impartial participants and create a sense of expertise and authority. Training initiatives could profitably seek to challenge this ‘topography of risk’ and sense of authority so that drivers more fully appreciate the hazard they may present to themselves and the public.     

Lifting technique and abdominal belt usage: a biomechanical, physiological and subjective investigation

Some 10 male subjects carried out a repetitive lifting task for 15 min under four conditions on separate days. Subjects used either a squat lifting or a stoop lifting technique with or without an abdominal belt on each day. Measurements of spinal shrinkage, heart rate, perceived exertion and regional body pain were made under each condition. Although there was a significant difference in spinal shrinkage under all lifting conditions compared with shrinkage during 15 min of quiet standing (4.36 ± 2.24 vs. 1.13 ± 1.18 mm), there were no significant differences in shrinkage between the conditions. The subjects' heart rates were higher during the squat lift than the stoop lift (123 vs. 97 beats/min; p < 0.001). While the squat lift was perceived to be the safest lift by 90% of the subjects, 60% regarded this lift as the least preferred method (with or without the belt). Although all 10 subjects perceived the safest lifting method to involve the use of the belt, 50% rated the belt as their least preferred lifting condition. The findings cast doubt on the efficacy and acceptability of both abdominal belts and the practice of training workers in ‘safe’ lifting techniques and indicate that individual characteristics and preferences need to be considered when attempting to improve the safety of manual handling operations in industry.     

For whom does safety pay? The case of major accidents

Government agencies regularly use the argument that ‘safety pays’ as a way of motivating employers to attend to occupational health and safety. This paper looks at the effectiveness of this argument in the case of catastrophic hazards. It suggests that, while it may be true that safety pays in an abstract sense, this is irrelevant unless it can be shown that safety pays for relevant decision makers. All too often it does not. The article illustrates its claims by drawing on the literature on the Zeebrugge, Bhopal and Piper Alpha disasters, as well as on a study of a mine disaster in Australia.