Characteristics of worker accidents on NYSDOT construction projects

INTRODUCTION: This paper aims at providing cost-effective safety measures to protect construction workers in highway work zones, based on real data. Two types of accidents that occur in work zones were: (a) construction work area accidents, and (b) traffic accidents involving construction worker(s). METHODOLOGY/RESULTS: A detailed analysis of work zone accidents involving 36 fatalities and 3,055 severe injuries to construction workers on New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) construction projects from 1990 to 2001 established that five accident types: (a) Struck/Pinned by Large Equipment, (b) Trip or Fall (elevated), (c) Contact w/Electrical or Gas Utility, (d) Struck-by Moving/Falling Load, and (e) Crane/Lift Device Failure accounted for nearly 96% of the fatal accidents, nearly 63% of the hospital-level injury accidents, and nearly 91% of the total costs. These construction work area accidents had a total cost of $133.8 million. Traffic accidents that involve contractors' employees were also examined. Statistical analyses of the traffic accidents established that five traffic accident types: (a) Work Space Intrusion, (b) Worker Struck-by Vehicle Inside Work Space, (c) Flagger Struck-by Vehicle, (d) Worker Struck-by Vehicle Entering/Exiting Work Space, and (e) Construction Equipment Struck-by Vehicle Inside Work Space accounted for nearly 86% of the fatal, nearly 70% of the hospital-level injury and minor injury traffic accidents, and $45.4 million (79.4%) of the total traffic accident costs. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this paper provide real statistics on construction worker related accidents reported on construction work zones. Potential preventions based on real statistics have also been suggested. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: The ranking of accident types, both within the work area as well as in traffic, will guide the heavy highway contractor and owner agencies in identifying the most cost effective safety preventions.     

The significance of domino effect in chemical accidents

A historical survey was performed on 330 accidents involving domino effect, occurred in process/storage plants and in the transportation of hazardous materials; only accidents occurred after 1st-January-1961 have been considered. The main features – geographical location, type of accident, materials involved, origin and causes, consequences, domino sequences – were analyzed, with special consideration to the situation in the developing countries and compared to those from other previous surveys. Among the involved substances, LPG was the most frequent one, followed by liquid hydrocarbons. Process plants (38.5% of cases) and storage areas (33%) were the most common settings; 10.6% of past domino accidents occurred in transfer operations. The ratio between “two-step” and “three-step” domino accidents was found to be 6. A specific analysis of the accidents (84) occurred in the 21st century was performed, comparing them with the total set of accidents. Finally, a set of specific recommendations inferred from the results is provided.     

A study of storage tank accidents

This paper reviews 242 accidents of storage tanks that occurred in industrial facilities over last 40 years. Fishbone Diagram is applied to analyze the causes that lead to accidents. Corrective actions are also provided to help operating engineers handling similar situations in the future. The results show that 74% of accidents occurred in petroleum refineries, oil terminals or storage. Fire and explosion account for 85% of the accidents. There were 80 accidents (33%) caused by lightning and 72 (30%) caused by human errors including poor operations and maintenance. Other causes were equipment failure, sabotage, crack and rupture, leak and line rupture, static electricity, open flames etc. Most of those accidents would have been avoided if good engineering have been practiced.     

Occupational accidents while walking on stairways

Nagata, H., 1991. Occupational accidents while walking on stairways. Safety Science, 14: 199–211.An analysis of occupational injury data related to falls while walking on stairways, and the causes associated with these stair accidents is described. The study was based on labour casualty reports. A total of 1486 stair accidents including 10 deaths, were collected from occupational accidents occurring within greater Tokyo. From these reports 425 cases were selected to undertake actual surveys including personal interviews, direct observations and field measurements. For the purpose of comparison with stairs where no accidents had been reported, a total of 1043 stairs were selected at random from drawings of various buildings.Nine fatal victims had received head injuries. Nearly half of the non-fatal victims received bruises mostly to the legs and feet. Most accidents occurred while descending stairways in haste. Young female employees wearing high or semi-high heeled footwear were relatively prone to fall on stairs. In winter, more stair accidents tended to occur to some extent. The proportion of female accidents was relatively higher than for males when compared to their population ratios. Employees were especially prone to receive injuries by misstep on straight flights of stairs.     

Factors associated with fatal accident involvement among California drivers

The primary objectives of this study were to examine characteristics of drivers involved in fatal accidents and to determine if those drivers could be distinguished from California's general driving population on the basis of prior driving record. A sample of drivers involved in 1970–1971 fatal accidents was analyzed and compared to a sample of drivers from the general driving population during the same time period. Drivers who had been drinking prior to the accident, who were considered at-fault for the accident, or whose accident occurred at night were found to have worse prior driving records than other fatal accident-involved drivers. The results also indicated that, as a whole, drivers involved in fatal accidents had worse violation and/or accident records, as well as different demographic and license characteristics than drivers in the general population. The classification functions derived to predict fatal accidents, however, did not differ greatly from regression equations that have been constructed to predict total accidents. It was therefore concluded that prediction systems keyed to total accidents will, to a large extent, also identify high-risk fatal accident drivers.     

Major accidents in process industries and an analysis of causes and consequences

This paper briefly recapitulates some of the major accidents in chemical process industries which occurred during 1926–1997. These case studies have been analysed with a view to understand the damage potential of various types of accidents, and the common causes or errors which have led to disasters. An analysis of different types of accidental events such as fire, explosion and toxic release has also been done to assess the damage potential of such events. It is revealed that vapour cloud explosion (VCE) poses the greatest risk of damage. The study highlights the need for risk assessment in chemical process industries.     

Trends of hazardous material accidents (HMAs) during highway transportation from 2013 to 2018 in China

Statistical analysis of hazardous material accidents (HMAs) in China from 20013 to 2018 related to characteristics and consequences is discussed in this study, revealing different time volatility, spatial distribution and accident consequence features. Yearly, monthly, weekly and hourly levels of HMAs are analysed, and the corresponding factors are discussed. The trends of HMAs are affected by different factors, such as efforts toward safety-specific rectification by the government, holidays, five-day workweek systems and daily traffic peaks. The spatial distribution trends indicate that highway transportation of hazardous materials is mostly short-distance transport. The accidents that occurred on normal road sections account for 82.76% of the total HMAs during transportation. Leaking accidents caused by HMAs account for 79.35% of the total accidents. Countermeasures focusing on improving highway transportation safety for hazardous materials are recommended.     

Assessment of the thermal hazards and oxidization mechanism of coloured corn starch dust by TG–FTIR

Starch is widely used in industrial production and in every life, and an increasing number of accidents of starch dust burning and explosions are occurring and have caused serious casualties and economic losses. Previous studies on the oxidative properties and microscopic characterization of coloured corn starch dust have been less systematic than the present study. To prevent coloured corn starch dust explosion accidents more effectively, thermogravimetry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were applied to study the oxidation characteristics of coloured corn starch dust. Seven characteristic temperatures were determined from the thermogravimetric curves and derivative thermogravimetric curves of coloured corn starch dust. The entire oxidation process of coloured corn starch dust was divided into five stages, and a 60% mass loss occurred in the rapid oxidation stage. Three iso-conversion methods were used to calculate the apparent activation energy (E_a) and pre-exponential factor (A) at different oxidation stages. The value of E_a was found to be related to the difficulty of the reaction, and it had a positive correlation with lnA. Six kinds of gases were detected during the oxidation process. The oxidation mechanism was further analysed by the macro and micro characterization of the oxidation process. The findings provide a theoretical basis for preventing and controlling explosion accidents that involve coloured corn starch dust.     

Revising HFACS for SMEs in the chemical industry: HFACS-CSMEs

Chemical accidents have occurred frequently in recent years, and most have occurred in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs in the chemical industry face greater challenges than large enterprises with regard to accident prevention. However, SMEs have been unable to effectively learn from accidents due to the limited resources. The accident causation model is an effective tool to help the analyst learn from accidents. As a systematic accident causation model, the causes classification in the human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS) can match the characteristics of SMEs, but the cause of chemical accidents can be ineffectively identified by HFACS. In this study, HFACS was revised for the SMEs in the chemical industry, mainly consisting of three parts. First, based on the definition of factors in the original HFACS, the extended HFACS framework was obtained, which include 78 manifestations with the characteristics of the chemical accidents. Second, 101 accidents occurring in a SME in the chemical industry from 2012 to 2016 were analyzed though the extended HFACS framework. Finally, a new model, known as the HFACS-CSMEs, was obtained by further revising the manifestations and causes classification according to the statistical results of the accident analysis. HFACS-CSMEs consists of 15 cause factors and 56 manifestations, which can effectually identify and distinguish the causes in chemical accidents. Moreover, the easy-to-understand and statistically acceptable features of HFACS-CSMEs can cater to the SMEs regarding accident analysis. HFACS-CSMEs solves the problem that HFACS cannot be directly applied to chemical accidents and provides new ideas about preventing accidents in SMEs in the chemical industry.     

2012年1-2月国内生产安全事故统计分析

统计了2012年1—2月国内发生的各种生产安全事故156起,其中包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄漏与中毒和其他事故。统计表明,在156起事故中,交通事故占75.64%,矿业事故占7.05%,火灾占3.21%,爆炸事故占3.85%,毒物泄漏和中毒占2.56%,其他事故占7.69%。156起事故共死亡742人,伤623人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故70.89%,矿业事故9.70%,火灾2.96%,爆炸事故6.20%,毒物泄漏与中毒2.16%,其他事故8.09%;受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故83.31%,爆炸事故12.36%,矿业事故2.25%,毒物泄漏与中毒1.28%,火灾0.48%,其他事故0.32%。2012年1—2月生产安全事故发生较多的省分别为广东(19起)、云南(17起)、贵州(12起)、四川(12起)、湖南(11起)、广西(11起);死亡人数较多的省分别为云南(83人)、广东(74人)、湖南(68人)、贵州(60人)、四川(53人);受伤人数较多的省分别为贵州(151人)、云南(95人)、湖南(58人)、河北(45人)、山西(37人)。     

Why bad things happen to good people

Accidents in the process industries are extensively investigated to determine root causes, for lessons learned, and many times in search of the “guilty”. Accidents are seldom simple and most accidents have human elements that led to or facilitated the accident. Many times the people involved in these accidents, when considered individually on their merit, would be considered “good” people yet “bad things” (accidents) still occur.Human errors can be classified as individual, group, and organizational. Individual human errors have been addressed in a number of studies and papers. Many of these classify human errors and treat them probabilistically or cognitively. Less has been said regarding the individual psychological/sociological response/interaction mechanisms that might contribute to an industrial accident. These elements also contribute to a lack of situational awareness which often plays a large part in human error. Group and organizational interactions/dynamics can also contribute negatively to situational awareness and to the chain of events of an accident. Organization errors, which are typically latent, can also facilitate an accident and are many times people enabled for personal and business vested interests.This paper will discuss the effect of human error at the practical plant level in contributing to accidents in the process industries from individual, group, and organizational perspective. The discussion will include psychological/sociological response/interaction mechanisms that can contribute to situational awareness and human error. It will also discuss how complexity, veracity, and quantity of available information can affect the human decision-making process leading to mistakes.Accidents are seldom simple and most accidents have a number of elements that led to or facilitated the accident. When looking at individual elements probabilistically, multiplying probabilities together, it is hard to see how an accident could have occurred. A common refrain “That’s double jeopardy and we don’t have to consider that” is essentially a qualitative probabilistic analysis. Yet we have cases of triple, quadruple, n-jeopardy occurring to cause accidents. The paper will discuss the superimposition of causes and a similar concept of functional resonance in causing accidents.     

2011年11-12月国内生产安全事故统计分析

文章统计了2011年11—12月国内发生的各种生产安全事故207起,其中包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄漏与中毒和其他事故。统计表明,在207起事故中,交通事故最多,占55.07%,其次是其他事故(18.36%)、矿业事故(7.73%)、火灾(7.73%)、爆炸事故(6.28%)、毒物泄漏和中毒(4.83%)。207起事故共死亡946人,伤1 086人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故53.91%、其他事故16.49%、矿业事故13.11%、火灾7.19%、爆炸事故4.86%、毒物泄漏与中毒4.44%、;受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故54.70%、爆炸事故22.93%、其他事故8.38%、矿业事故6.63%、毒物泄漏与中毒5.52%、火灾1.84%。2011年11—12月生产安全事故发生较多的前5个省分别为云南(20起)、四川(19起)、广东(16起)、贵州(13起)、湖南(13起);死亡人数较多的前5个省分别为云南(112人)、四川(72人)、广东(58人)、贵州(57人)、江苏(54人);受伤人数较多的前5个省分别为贵州(198人)、云南(149人)、四川(72人)、河南(65)、甘肃(63人)。     

2006年11-12月国内安全事故统计分析

统计了2006年11-12月国内发生的各种安全事故284起,包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄露和中毒及其他事故.统计表明,在这些事故中,交通事故最多,占49.65%,其次是矿业事故(22.89%)、爆炸事故(10.21%)、其他事故(10.21%)、毒物泄露和中毒(3.52%)、火灾(3.52%).284起事故共死亡1 124人,伤835人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故41.81%、矿业事故35.41%、其他事故7.74%、爆炸事故7.47%、火灾4.63%、泄露中毒2.94%;受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故62.75%、矿业事故13.53%、爆炸事故11.86%、其他事故8.38%、火灾2.40%、泄露中毒1.08%.     

2006年7-8月国内安全事故统计分析

统计了2006年7-8月国内发生的各种安全事故279起,包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄露和中毒及其他事故.统计表明,在这些事故中,交通事故最多,占55.91%,其次是矿业事故(22.22%)、爆炸事故(9.32%)、其他事故(5.73%)、毒物泄露和中毒(4.66%)、火灾(2.15%).279起事故共死亡1 253人,伤1 519人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故52.27%、矿业事故26.74%、爆炸事故11.65%、其他事故4.79%、火灾2.39%、泄露中毒2.15%;受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故53.59%、泄露中毒17.38%、爆炸事故14.42%、矿业事故10.73%、其他事故2.63%、火灾1.25%.     

2007年5-6月国内安全事故统计分析

统计了2007年5-6月国内发生的各种安全事故429起,包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄露和中毒及其他事故.统计表明,在这些事故中,其他事故最多,占41.26%,其次是交通事故(36.83%)、矿业事故(12.82%)、爆炸事故(5.13%)、毒物泄露和中毒(2.10%)、火灾(1.86%).429起事故共死亡1 213人,伤1 128人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故49.46%、其他事故22.92%、矿业事故18.38%、爆炸事故4.20%、火灾3.38%、泄露中毒1.65%;受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故58.16%、爆炸事故17.55%、矿业事故9.93%、其他事故7.18%、泄露中毒5.59%、火灾1.60%.     

2006年5-6月国内安全事故统计分析

统计了2006年5-6月国内发生的各种安全事故279起,包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄露和中毒及其他事故.统计表明,在这些事故中,交通事故最多,占48.03%,其次是矿业事故(27.60%)、其他事故(8.24%)、爆炸事故(6.45%)、毒物泄露和中毒(6.09%)、火灾(3.58%).279起事故共死亡1 106人,伤1 043人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故45.30%、矿业事故32.37%、爆炸事故7.23%、其他事故6.78%、泄露中毒4.79%、火灾3.53%;受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故52.92%、矿业事故16.49%、爆炸事故9.88%、泄露中毒9.68%、其他事故6.52%、火灾4.51%.     

2006年9-10月国内安全事故统计分析

统计了2006年9-10月国内发生的各种安全事故278起,包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄露和中毒及其他事故.统计表明,在这些事故中,交通事故最多,占52.88%,其次是矿业事故(20.14%)、其他事故(11.15%)、爆炸事故(7.55%)、火灾(5.04%)、毒物泄露和中毒(3.24%).278起事故共死亡1 053人,伤1 321人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故53.85%、矿业事故24.60%、其他事故9.78%、火灾6.55%、爆炸事故3.89%、泄露中毒1.33%;受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故39 44%、泄露中毒35.43%、矿业事故10.67%、爆炸事故5.37%、其他事故5.15%、火灾3.94%.     

2007年3-4月国内安全事故统计分析

统计了2007年3-4月国内发生的各种安全事故399起,包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄露和中毒及其他事故.统计表明,在这些事故中,交通事故最多,占43.61%,其次是其他事故(30.58%)、矿业事故(15.29)、爆炸事故(5.51%)、火灾(3.01%)、毒物泄露和中毒(2.01%).399起事故共死亡1 389人,伤1 732人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故49.82%、矿业事故24.33%、其他事故18.57%、爆炸事故3.38%、火灾2.52%、泄露中毒1.37%; 受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故50.58%、泄露中毒29.79%、矿业事故8.66%、其他事故5.72%、爆炸事故3.23%、火灾2.02%.     

2009年11-12月国内安全生产事故统计分析

统计了2009年11-12月国内发生的各种安全生产事故234起,包括矿业事故、交通事故、爆炸事故、火灾、毒物泄漏和中毒及其他事故.统计表明,在234起事故中,交通事故最多,占62.82%,其次是矿业事故(11.11%)、爆炸事故(9.83%)、其他事故(8.55%)、、火灾(5.13%)毒物泄漏和中毒(2.56%).234起事故共死亡981人,伤597人,死亡人数的百分比分别为交通事故56.78%、矿业事故23.75%、其他事故6.73%、爆炸事故6.12%、火灾4.49%、泄漏中毒2.14%;受伤人数的百分比分别为交通事故68.84%、爆炸事故12.73%、其他事故8.04%、矿业事故6.83%、泄漏中毒2.35%、火灾1.17%.