Accident repeater

In many fields the worst result is a waste of resources on repetitive work but when safety is concerned the lack of access to available knowledge can have tragic results. Those of us who have been working in the safety field for many years have seen the same accidents repeat themselves with distressing regularity. We welcome, therefore, every attempt to bring together scattered information on any aspect of safety and make it readily accessible. 

Similar remarks can be made about accident reports, it was observed that the focus of the majority is on the direct safety related deviations in the accident causation path, and almost no attention is given to the indirect safety related deviations. Indirect safety related deviations were mentioned but no attention was given to the fact that these deviations were in the causal path, re-occurring, and often present for a long time prior to the accident. Korvers (Korvers et al., 2002) gave some good examples by showing ten cases in which identical indirect safety related deviations present prior to accidents repeatedly caused similar accidents. 

Special emphasis programs are designed to meet the imique occupational safety and health needs of the company. The previous example of a special emphasis ladder safety program could have just as easily been an accident repeat program for those... 

Remedial training is designed for drivers who have had a certain number of accidents. Each remedial course should focus on the types of accidents the repeaters have had and should then incorporate discussion into the curriculum. A decrease in the number of accident repeaters has been a benefit of remedial training. 

First, determine the driver s ability to avoid accidents. This may be the most important characteristic of the driver. No matter how well qualified a driver is in other areas of work, an accident repeater will always be a bad investment for the company. 

An accident repeater is a person who, in the same or in different situations, seems to continue having the same type of accident. A person with few or no accidents may indicate self-discipline. 

An important question in connection with accident investigations is whether the same type of accident has occurred before. This question is easily answered if a computerised accident database is available. The most efficient means of searching for similar occurrences is to utilise the free-text search facilities of the information retrieval programme. There are computerised tools for pattern recognition that may help identify accident repeaters. It is important to note that different persons may use different words to describe the same work operations, equipment, etc. There are also spelling errors and misconceptions that hinder efficient free-text search. The analyst must be well acquainted with the workplace in question and the different dialects in use. 

Both measures have been carried out many times and are sometimes still in practice, today, in occupational safety. However, objective tests into the effects of such measures have so far not yielded the expected results. Especially, the replacement of those individuals with the highest accident rates did not, as a rule, reduce both remarkably and at some length the accident rate of a working group (Adelstein 1952). Even extensive studies on accident repeaters in the traffic sector brought out disappointing results. For example, even if all the drivers in a study by Peck Coppin (1967) with one or more accidents had been theoretically removed from traffic participation (all... 

If in fact accident proneness remains stable because of its attachment to individual and ability characteristics, there will be also differences in characteristics according to groups of accident-free people compared to accident-repeaters. 

The final 15 predictors of the construct sample multiple regression equation resulted in a multiple R = 0.59 which subsequently shrank to an R = 0.47 upon cross-validation. None of the simulator event variables had even marginal significance and were excluded, therefore, from the final regression equation. The concurrent prediction equation correctly classified 68.9% of the accident-free drivers and 71.2% of the accident repeaters. This was approximately 20% better than chance prediction. Because of the contrasted criterion group design, however, these validities were overestimates of what would be attained on a normal population of drivers. Results on biographical data and psychomotor functions are listed in Tab 5.15. 

The Socioeconomic Cluster was by far the most significant of the biographical predictors. Accident repeaters were associated with inferior education, low socioeconomic index scores, poor vocabulary scores, and high social deviance scores (CIDAO - part C). Traffic convictions were found to be one of the best predictors of accident involvement in other studies it was confirmed in this study, too. CIDAO - part A items appeared to measure maturity, risk-taking, driving attitudes, and emotional stability. Drivers who tended to agree with the accident-keyed items were more apt to be in the accident repeater group. 

Analysis of the Elderly Driver Index showed that, compared to accident-free drivers, accident repeaters tended to have lower opinions of their driving,... 

After developing questions, the PrHA team considers each to determine possible accident effects and list safety levels for prevention, mitigation, or containing the accident. The significance of each accident is determined and safety improvements to be recommended. This is repeated for each process step or area outside of team meetings for later team review... 

HAZSEC generates two types of records. The first page is the log sheet with the time, date, rc% ision number, team leader, and team members. This page also contains a section that describes the part of the plant design under investigation, and a statement of the design intent, i.e., the expected equipment performance under normal and accident conditions. The pages that follow repeat this... 

A No. As the Chairman said in a recent interview-and I will repeat now-it is our intention to continually improve performance. However, it is unrealistic to believe that we could achieve a zero accident or emission standard tomorrow. Even if it were theoretically achievable, the cost would be so large that we would bankrupt the company. We must maintain a balance between the benefits we achieve and the cost of achieving them. Let me also remind you that as a company we have made a commitment to abandon any business or technology where we consider the safety and environmental risks to be intolerable. 

Many accidents resulting from dangerous reactions have a history of repeating themselves over the years, without the lessons of history being properly drawn. For example, the accident at Seveso, arising from difficulties in controlling the reaction temperature of sodium hydroxide with 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene, had already happened three times a few years before. The symptoms due to acute intoxication caused by dioxin were already known. 

When analysing such accidents the same patterns keep repeating themselves, and this could be due to a systematic lack of bibliographic work. 

Powdered aluminium had been added to oleic acid. The mixture detonated after being prepared. Such an accident could not be repeated and it was thought that it was caused by the presence of a peroxide formed by the effect of air on oleic acid. In fact, the acid functional group has obviously nothing to do with the peroxidation. It is more likely that the chain s double bond that activates p hydrogen atoms (ally position) was involved in it. This is a well-known phenomenon since it is responsible for the rancidity of some oils and greases. 

Accidental slow addition of water to a mixture of the anhydride and acetic acid (85 15) led to a violent, large scale explosion. This was simulated closely in the laboratory, again in the absence of mineral-acid catalyst [1]. If unmoderated, the rate of acid-catalysed hydrolysis of (water insoluble) acetic anhydride can accelerate to explosive boiling [2], Essentially the same accident, fortunately with no injuries or fatalities this time, was repeated in 1990. 

This is a very simple example of apparent constant flow of planets round the Sun. It can be treated as close to perpetual motion with no material changes. We describe the system first before we explain why it is a simple but not a quite correct case. The planets flow in orbits under two forces or fields - gravity and centrifugal force . The velocity is assumed to be fixed. Hence the systems have form, structure , which is constantly repeated, but no information passes between the objects as everything in the system is part of the form and without any of the pieces, planet masses, the Sun and gravitational forces, there would be no flow. The total of all the parts is needed to maintain the flow characteristics of the formed whole system. It is clear that the system is not to be described as random and it has an evolutionary cause even though generated by accident, and has allowed life. 

The study of case histories is important in the area of safety. To paraphrase G. Santayana, one learns from history or is doomed to repeat it. This is especially true for safety anyone working in the chemical industry can learn from case histories and avoid hazardous situations or ignore history and be involved in potentially life-threatening accidents. 

Accidents occur rapidly and unexpectedly. There is usually inadequate time to manually return a situation back into control after a significant deviation from the norm is observed. Those who believe that they can successfully control accident deviations manually are doomed to repeat history. 

Illustrate the layered accident investigation process, using Example 13-1 as a guide, to develop the underlying causes of the duct system explosion described in section 13-1. 13-2. Repeat Problem 13-1 for the bottle of isopropyl ether accident described in section 13-2. 13-3. Repeat Problem 13-1 for the nitrobenzene sulfonic acid decomposition accident described in section 13-2. 

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