Accident-prone persons

Supervisors are responsible to see that every worker is adequate on the job. Physically, mentally, and emotionally inadequate workers are accident prone. Personal hazards are lack of knowledge, conflict of motives, physical, and mental factors. 

The stereotypical accident-prone person is usually a poorly motivated individual with... 

Accident research during the early part of this century studied the relation between accidents and personal traits of the victim. Accident-proneness was a commonly accepted theory at that time (McKennan, 1983). It stated that certain individuals due to personal traits are more susceptible to accidents than others. It follows from this theory that accident risk may be reduced substantially by removing accident-prone persons from hazardous jobs. Today, accident-proneness is considered to account for only a small part of accidents. It follows that a preventive strategy based on this theory in most cases will have only minor effects. We do not find accident models in use in industry today that focus solely on personal factors. 

The checklist has been used as a design tool as well as an accident-investigation tool in cases where human errors have played a central role. It draws attention away from blaming the person that made the error. Instead, it focuses on the identification of dysfunctions in the design of the man-machine system from an ergonomics point of view. The intention is to identify accident-prone workplaces rather than accident-prone persons. 

Distributions of accident frequency often provide surprising results. A small number of people are responsible for most of the accidents which occur in a population. Lejeune (1958) reported, for example, that in a study on bus and tram drivers who were exposed to relatively equal risk situations, 10 % of the employees with the highest accident rates were involved in 30 % - 70 % of all accidents. This observation appears to coincide fully with the personality concept of the accident-prone person. It seems that there are particular personality factors and traits like immaturity, risk-taking behavior, or lack of self-confidence which facilitate the occurrence of accidents. 

Accident proneness represents the relative ability or inability of persons to cope with or adjust to the demands of a hazardous situation. The degree to which they cope with the situation, and the adequacy of the adjustments they make, therefore depend on at least two factors the personal factors and the situational requirements. Thus, it is logical to identify not only accident-prone persons, but also accident-prone situations (Swain 1985). 

Accident Proneness. Tlie old notion that certain people are accident-prone has been difficult to establish as fact. A more acceptable concept may be "accident liability," which cati be related lo factors that often are temporary and do not depend primarily on personality traits, such as work situation or stress. 

Dahlback, O. (1991). Accident-proneness and risk-taking. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 79-85. 

Out of all kinds of methods of preventing accident, BBS (Behavior Based Safety) plays a significant role in the control and improvement of personal behavior, but the time it works lasts too long. BBS cannot satisfy the need of Chinese safety production, as far as the characteristic of instantaneity of accident occurrence and Chinese accident-prone situation are concerned. In fact, BBS is seldom used in Chinese coal mine in order to prevent accident and improve safety. 

Narcosis of sufficient degree to increase accident proneness (narcosis affects a person s judgment and can impair their abihty to work safely). No more than four excursions per day are permitted with at least 60 minutes between excursions and provided that the 8-hour TLV-TWA is not exceeded. 

A peak sound pressure of above 200 pascals or about 120dB is considered unacceptable and 130dB is the threshold of pain for humans. If a person has to shout to be understood at 2 metres, the background noise is about 85 dB. If the distance is oniy 1 metre, the noise level is about 90dB. Continuous noise at work causes deafness, makes people Irritable, affects concentration, causes fatigue and accident proneness, and may mask sounds which need to be heard in order to work efficientiy and safely. 

Biased liability promotes the view that once an individual becomes involved in an accident, the chances of that same person becoming involved in a future accident increases or decreases when compared to other people. The accident proneness theory promotes the notion that some individuals will simply experience more accidents than others because of some personal tendency. 

Attribution theory suggests that there are two main types of explanation for the causes of behaviour. (This is the case whether we are considering safety or any other aspect of behaviour.) The first type of explanation is one that is accepted, almost without question, by the man in the street. It is that a person s behaviour is caused by characteristics such as their personality or their attitudes. Thus accidents are perceived as being caused by peoplebeing accident-prone, foolhardy, negligent, or having a poor safety attitude. In attribution theory terms these explanations are referred... 

There have been attempts to relate personality types to accident rates, notably to define risk takers. In section 2.7.4 this is briefly discussed under the heading of accident proneness. 

The discussion below will focus on the relevance of some of the personality-type characteristics that have been linked to crash involvement. The personality concepts that have been studied in the context of driving include accident proneness, risk taking and sensation seeking, aggression, and perceptual style. Although each of these concepts is described separately, it is important to note that various specific personality characteristics are interrelated. For example, Malta et ol. (2005) demonstrated that aggressive drivers can be characterized by multiple distinct medical disorders such as Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders, Conduct Disorder, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Intermittent Explosive Disorder. There are also other personality traits that have been linked to driving and will not be discussed here. These include extroversion (the tendency to attend to external events rather than focus internally) (Smith and Kirkham, 1981) and externally-oriented locus of control (the tendency not to assume responsibility for events that happen to a person) (Mayer and Treat, 1977). 

The first challenge is to determine whether or not there is a pervasive personality characteristic that makes people accident prone in general, a characteristic that has been labeled just that -accident proneness. 

This popular but ineffective approach to injury prevention is based on the intuitive notion of "accident proneness." The strategy is to identify aspects of accident proneness among job applicants and then screen out people with critical levels of certain characteristics. Accident proneness characteristics targeted for measurement and screening have included anxiety, distractibility, tension, insecurity, beliefs about injury control, general expectancies about personal control of life events, social adjustment, reliability, impulsivity, sensation seeking, boredom susceptibility, and self-reported alcohol use. 

This so-called "psychological approach" held that certain individuals were "accident prone." By removing these workers from risky jobs or by disciplining them to correct their attitude or personality problems, it was thought that accidents could be reduced. As 1 discussed in Qiapter 1, this focus on accident proneness has not been effective, partly because reliable and valid measurement procedures are not available. Also, the person factors contributing to accident proneness are probably not consistent characteristics or traits within people, but vary from time to time and situation to situation. 

Research early focused on the possibility to identify accident-prone drivers, i.e. drivers who due to certain personal characteristics were more likely to be involved in traffic accidents than others. The aim was to improve traffic safety by identifying such individuals, e.g. by use of psychological tests, and excluding them from the traffic environment. Accident statistics showed that some drivers experienced more accidents than others. Although this so-called accident-proneness theory is often accepted as credible by the layman, it has been criticised by the research community for several reasons and is today of little practical significance (McKennan, 1983). The critique may be summarised as follows ... 

A small part of the differences between drivers in accident experience may be explained by personal characteristics. It has turned out to be difficult, however, to identify the specific characteristics of accident-prone drivers. This makes it difficult to develop valid and reliable tests. 

In reply to Mr Bulman, the unsafe act is undoubtedly a useful concept in safety education, provided it is seen for what it is. A leading safety authority in the USA, Mr William W. Allison, is making great efforts to counter what he calls the erroneous concept of accident proneness and unsafe personal act mythology . 

In common view, the human factor accounts for most of the causes of accidents. Estimates range between 60 and 90 % reflecting the proficiency of the rater. More specifically it is often assumed that particular personality traits facilitate people to become involved in accidents. Personality factors have been studied for 60 years, and accident proneness, considered as a general personal trait by the public, has been of continuous and particular interest. 

Kunkel (1973) defines accident proneness as an "interindividually differing, personality constant, time-stable tendency to become involved into accidents", (p. 27). The proneness results in an interindividually different accident risk. Farmer Chambers (1926) reached the conclusion that the results of accident statistics allow to differentiate between accident proneness and accident liability. According to them accident proneness is a narrower term compared to accident liability and means a personal tendency predisposing the individual to a relatively high accident rate. Accident liability includes all the factors determining accident rates technical, organizational, and personal factors. 

The impressive amount of results which link personal variables to the occurrence of accidents cannot be overlooked. There are certain combinations of personality traits which facilitate accidents in specific situations. Kunkel (1973) points out "A model of accident proneness in which the degree of accident proneness is seen as a quality which supervenes with a certain constellation of several situational factors seems much more realistic. In these constellations, several factors can take on special meaning. For example, in one case a lack of intelligence may be of importance, whereas in another case risk behavior, or a massive disturbance in reaction behavior can be set in relation to accident proneness" (p. 73). 

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