Statistics, accidents

It is always helpful to review accident statistics in order to gain an appreciation of the underlying factors that cause accidents. In some ways, the use of the word accident to describe incidents is unfortunate because it tends to hide the fact that many of the incidents in which people are injured are entirely preventable, although it is accepted that most are unexpected and unintentional. A very good source of information on electrical accident statistics is the HSE s publication Electrical Incidents in Great Britain -Statistical Summary, published in 1997. Although this covers the period 1989 to 1996, the underlying statistics remain vaUd today. 

During the seven-year period 1989 to 1996, 148 employed and self-employed people were killed at work in the UK from the direct consequences of electric shock and burns. This means that, on average, some 21 people per 

It can be assumed that the numbers for fatal accidents will be accurate because the HSE learns about all workplace deaths, but those for non-fatal injuries will seriously underestimate the actual number of workplace injuries because of endemic underreporting. Many employers and self-employed people are reluctant to report injuries to the HSE, despite the fact that not to do so is a breach of the Reporting of Injuries and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995. Another influencing factor is that the Regulations only require to be reported those electric shock injuries that lead to unconsciousness or require resuscitation or admittance to hospital for more than 24 hours very many electric shock incidents do not fall within those categories. Otherwise, electrical injuries must be reported if they lead to  

Historically, some 50 to 60% of fatal electrical accidents are due to persons coming into contact with overhead power lines. The most common type of overhead line incident involves construction and agriculture vehicles, such as tipper trucks and excavators, making inadvertent contact with 11 kV and 33 kV overhead lines. 

To emphasise the point about the danger from overhead lines, during the ten-year period 1986 to 1996 some 130 members of the public were killed by making contact with overhead power lines. 

In Hungary, according to recent statistics, approximately two-thirds of the accidents involving fatalities and personal injuries occm inside built-up areas, whereas 60% of fatal accidents occur outside built-up areas, 20% of which happen on first-class main roads. There has been a major decrease in the number of accidents and victims in the recent years, and in the road category investigated this decrease is above the average. 

The number of fatalities was 1,232 on the entire road network in 2007 and plrrrrrmeted to 641 by 2012, which is more than a 47% decrease. In the case of rural first-class main roads these results are slightly better, in the same time period the nrrrrrber of fatalities dropped by almost 56%. As far as the accident types are concerned, ran-off road acciderrts represent 27%, rear-end collisions 20%, head-on collisiorts 19% and side impact collisiorts 13% of the total ntrmber of accidents. 

As a first step of the data survey, the following data were gathered from the National Road Databank for the entire length (1,659 km)  

This database is organized in such a way that if there is a change in any of the parameters there is a new record (a new segment begins). As a result, these segment lengths can be very short, in some cases just a few meters therefore the segmentation technique itself was an important issue to deal with. 

As a result of the segment delineation, roughly 55% of the entire length (919 km of 1,659 km) was used for further analysis. Although vertical alignment data were also collected, since the country has a relatively flat topography and because there were just a few sections with slopes, this characteristic was omitted. Another variable that seemed to be an important predictor according to other researchers work was access poirrt density (e.g. [CAP 10]). In our case access points (driveways) were hardly present as oirr foctts was on rural sections, where access points are very limited. 

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In the United States, advocates for bicycling arc divided on the question of special facilities. It is doubtful that Dutch-style facilities would create much greater ridership in most U.S. locales, because the trip distances are too long. The best reading of accident statistics shows that adult riders well-schooled in sharing the road with automobiles and... 

OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the United States government. OSHA is responsible for ensuring that workers are provided with a safe working environment. Table 1-2 contains several OSHA definitions applicable to accident statistics. 

Typical accident statistics for various industries are shown in Table 1-3. A FAR of 1.2 is reported in Table 1-3 for the chemical industry. Approximately half these deaths are due to ordinary industrial accidents (falling down stairs, being run over), the other half to chemical exposures.2... 

A friend states that more rock climbers are killed traveling by automobile than are killed rock climbing. Is this statement supported by the accident statistics ... 

Recognizing that the chemical industry is safe, why is there so much concern about chemical plant safety The concern has to do with the industry s potential for many deaths, as, for example, in the Bhopal, India, tragedy. Accident statistics do not include information on the total number of deaths from a single incident. Accident statistics can be somewhat misleading in this respect. For example, consider two separate chemical plants. Both plants have a probability of explosion and complete devastation once every 1000 years. The first plant employs a single operator. When the plant explodes, the operator is the sole fatality. The second plant employs 10 operators. When this plant explodes all 10 operators succumb. In both cases the FAR and OSHA incidence rate are the same the second accident kills more people, but there are a correspondingly larger number of exposed hours. In both cases the risk taken by an individual operator is the same.4... 

Some naturalists suggest eliminating chemical plant hazards by returning to nature. One alternative, for example, is to eliminate synthetic fibers produced by chemicals and use natural fibers such as cotton. As suggested by Kletz,8 accident statistics demonstrate that this will result in a greater number of fatalities because the FAR for agriculture is higher. 

The airline industry claims commercial airline transport has fewer deaths per mile than any other means of transportation. Do the accident statistics support this claim In 1984 the airline industry posted 4 deaths per 10,000,000 passenger miles. What additional information is required to compute a FAR a fatality rate ... 

Accident statistics on the equipment involved in large losses give somewhat contradictory information (see Table 20). According to Mahoney (1992) the most common process items as primary accident cause are reactors. The next in the list are process drums whereas heaters are one of the safest. This contrasts with Instone s (1989) data, where heaters and boilers were the most common process items in the accidents, whereas reactors and process drums were quite uncommonly involved. This difference may be partly because Mahoney has analyzed the primary causes of large losses, whereas Instone has listed the involvement of equipment in losses. Since furnaces are sources of ignition for flammable leaks from other equipment, furnaces are not necessarily listed as primary causes even they are probably involved as secondary causes in many losses. Therefore the inclusion of both reactors and furnaces in the list of most unsafe equipment is well justified. 

The chemical and most process factors affecting the index are quite straightforward to estimate. More problematic are the equipment safety and the safety of process structure. The equipment safety subindex was developed based on evaluation of accident statistics and layout information. The evaluation of the safe process structure subindex is based on case-based reasoning, which requires experience based information on accident cases and on the operation characteristics of different process configurations. 

Accident statistics have shown that fires and explosions represent 97 percent of the largest accidents in the chemical industry (J. Coco, ed., Large Property Damage Losses in the Hydrocarbon-Chemical Industry A Thirty Year Review, J. H. Marsh and McLennan, New York, 1997). 

She then saw several possible connections with her topic, even before brainstorming again. She could write about healthcare coverage for music therapy, healthcare policy resources on the Internet, or how accident statistics affect healthcare policies. 

Between 1985 and 1991,1726 natural gas pipeline ruptures andleakages were reported in the United States. These incidents resulted in 634 injuries and 131 fatalities. Third-party damage was the most common cause of these incidents, followed by corrosion. The GAO believes that the corrosion-related incidents can be reduced with the use of smart pigs (46). U.S. DOT 1992 accident statistics showed that 52.5% of U.S. oil spills involving loss of at least 1590 m3 came from pipeline accidents, comparable to the worldwide statistic of 51.5%. The U.S. DOT regulated 344,575 km of liquids pipelines during the 10-yr study period and received reports on 1901 accidents during that time thus the number of failures per year per 1000 miles was 0.888, of which 27% was due to corrosion and 31% to outside forces (48). 

Accident statistics formerly showed nitration as the most widespread and powerfully destructive industrial unit process operation (it has been overtaken by polymerisation). This is because nitric acid can, under certain conditions, effect complete and highly exothermal conversion of organic molecules to gases, the reactions often being capable of acceleration to deflagration or detonation. Case histories are described and safety aspects of continuous nitration processes are discussed in detail [1]. Of the 25 chapters of the book [2], each a paper presented at the symposium on Advances in Industrial and Laboratory Nitrations at Philadelphia in 1975, 3 deal with safety aspects of nitration Ch. 8, Hanson, C. etal., Side Reactions during Aromatic Nitration, Ch. 22, Biasutti, G. S.,... 

Despite some incidents, the chemical industry presents good accident statistics. A statistical survey of work accidents shows that chemistry is positioned close to the end of the list, classified by order of decreasing lost work days [2] (Table 1.1). Further, these accidents only constitute a minor part due to chemical accidents, the greatest part consisting of common accidents such as falls, cuts, and so on that can happen in any other activity. 

Fisher et al. (1991) Biokinetic Model A modified biokinetic model for uranium was developed for inhaled soluble uranium based on human data from an accidental release of uranium hexafluoride in Oklahoma. Urinary excretion data from 31 exposed workers were used to test two previously published compartmental models for inhalation exposure to uranium (ICRP 1979 Wrenn et al. 1989). Urinary uranium was measured periodically for 2 years following the accident. Statistical analysis showed that the Wrenn et al. (1989) model produced a better fit to the excretion data than the ICRP (1979) model. 

Indicators of safety performance should also be included here, particularly for more hazardous industries. Accident statistics and reported case studies provide useful data, supported by inherent safety indices and risk assessments. 

Spontaneous ignition accident statistics from China reveal that [Hao] ... 

As part of the support activities for the QRA, the transportation manager works with the current and proposed carriers reviewing accident statistics. Since the delivery of pesticides from the facility is a dedicated activity, it is important to develop representative accident rates, as opposed to using a general trucking accident rate. Both carriers keep excellent records for all their hazardous material transportation operations. The following is determined and provided as input to QRA after a review of these records ... 

Table 5.4 Intermediate Accident Statistics (only for example purposes)...

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