Safety CSI: Repeat Accidents

It’s bad enough when an accident happens once. But if the same or similar accidents happen repeatedly, the damage multiplies.

That’s why it’s so important to break the chain of repeat accidents. Before you can do so, however, you need to know where accidents are happening and who’s involved. The OSHA Required Training for Supervisors monthly newsletter offers the following advice.

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Where Do Most Repeat Accidents Happen?

Keep an eye on these “hot spots”:

• High-risk jobs involving hazardous chemicals and dangerous equipment


• High-stress jobs without enough built-in relief in the form of breaks and support


• Repetitive jobs that can cause musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)


• Seasonal jobs that involve periodic high-volume work, which can create accident clusters


• Repeat injuries from prior workplace or off-the-job injuries that didn’t heal properly, perhaps because of returning to work too early


• Referred injuries from overcompensation of other parts of the body for an area that was previously injured—for example, hip problems from adjusting the gait to accommodate a knee injury.

Who’s Most Often Involved?

Safety experts believe that about 20 percent of workers cause 80 percent of accidents. So it would seem that some employees truly are “accident prone.” Who are these employees? Irresponsible, aggressive, and easily distractible people head the list. In addition, employees who exhibit the following traits are frequently involved in repeat accidents:

• Stoic “tough guys,” who work through any injury or illness and consider it a sign of weakness to do otherwise


• Risk takers, who think accidents happen to other people and who are often young and male


• Angry people, who let emotions distract them from their work because, as the old saying goes, they are “so angry they can’t see straight”


• Shy workers, who don’t want to draw attention to themselves by reporting an incident or near miss


• Tired people, including shiftworkers, whose lifestyles don’t give them enough energy or alertness to work safely


• Disinterested workers, who frankly don’t give a damn about the job and simply don’t care enough to be careful

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What Are the Main Contributing Factors?

Here are the three main factors that contribute to repeat accidents:

1. Human factors include an employee’s:




1. Lack of job skills and knowledge


2. Unsafe work style/habits (rushing, careless, inattentive)


3. Poor judgment (taking shortcuts, skipping steps, not bothering with personal protective equipment (PPE)


4. Lack of physical fitness (overweight and out of shape)


5. Distracting personal problems


2. Jobsite factors include:




1. Not having the right equipment for the job or equipment in poor condition


2. Workers fitted to jobs rather than jobs fitted to workers


3. Improperly laid out work spaces that don’t provide ease of movement and worker comfort


4. Inadequately managed work flow resulting in workload spikes and overloads


5. Poorly lit, loud, over- or underheated work environments


3. Safety culture factors include:




1. An environment in which safety and health aren’t priorities and safe behavior isn’t reinforced and rewarded


2. Accident investigations that don’t get to the root causes of accidents and fail to correct safety problems to prevent future accidents


3. Failure to choose the right people for the job and failure to ensure that staffing levels are always adequate to prevent work overload and unreasonable production schedules


4. Insufficient safety training so that employees don’t understand hazards or don’t have the skills and knowledge they need to do the job safely


5. Equipment that isn’t always in safe operating condition, failure to schedule routine maintenance and repairs, and use of more hazardous materials when less hazardous ones could be substituted


6. Failure of supervision to ensure that employees are wearing required PPE and following safe work practices

Tomorrow we’ll look at key strategies for breaking the chain of repeat accidents and at a tool that will put your employees in the proper frame of mind to do so.