Accountability, accident costs

Increasing the number of genuine claims paid under WC slightly increases workplace injuries. Specifically, the elasticity of the injury rate with respect to v /2 is about 0.004. Our simulations reveal that the shift in accident costs away from workers toward firms as a higher proportion of genuine WC claims are paid is relatively small, which accounts for the small increase in worker injuries. 

Thus under accounting systems currently employed in many companies, accident costs are not charged to departmental managers budgets, whereas accident prevention is. Hence the departmental manager has no economic motivation to undertake any accident prevention rather the reverse. 

After implementing a 100% fall protection program and supervisor accountability. Horizon Steel Erectors, Inc., had a 96% reduction in its accident cost per hour, from 4.26 to 0.18. 

The costs of accidents are shared between the individual, the company responsible for the accident, the insurer and the public sector. Company s costs are normally not visible in their books of account. A traditional approach in accident research has been to develop models for use in the recording of accident costs to the company. Average results are then used in estimations of costs of future accidents. The aim is to make the losses associated with accidents visible to the management of the company. 

In Norway, a series of ex post-accident cost studies have been performed within the chemical, metallurgical and mechanical industries (Sklet and Mostue, 1993). When the market-pricing model was applied, average costs to the company of accidents were about 1000 euro. They were lowest in the chemical industry (800 euro) and highest in the metallurgic industry (1100 euro). Costs increased with the severity of the accident. Costs to the company for permanent disabilities and fatalities varied between 1500 and 10000 euro. Uninsured salary to the injured worker accounted for between 74 per cent and 90 per cent of the total costs for the temporary disabilities. In-plant accident costs were significantly less than 1 per cent of the salary costs. 

Market failure also occurs in example II. In actuality, as shown in table 7.4, the railroad will choose not to take care, irrespective of the actions of Party B, because it prefers -8 to -15, and -6 to -13. Party B will choose not to take care because it prefers -8 to -9, and -5 to -6. The equilibrium will impose sixteen units of total costs on society. Had Party B chosen to take care, total social costs would have been fifteen. Party B does not take care because it weighs the three-unit cost of taking care against a reduction in its own expected accident cost of only two. Party B does not take into account in its decision that taking care will also save two units of expected accident cost to the railroad. 

It was noticed that the scale of penalties is much narrower than the scale of recommended layout spacings or the cost of large losses. This is because the Dow F E Index takes into account only large rotating equipment, which is known more likely to contribute to accidents than smaller equipment. Thus the smaller equipment is safer and it is not given penalties. 

The lower estimate by Leger accounted for those vehicle accidents occurring during the maximum hours of sleepiness 02 00-07 00 hr and 14 00-17 00 hr. For 1988, 36.1% of fatal accidents (17,689 deaths) and 41.6% of total accidents (resulting in 769,184 disabling injuries) occurred during the hours of maximum sleepiness. This yielded a cost of 29.2 billion. 

In 1988, the total cost of work-related accidents of 47.1 billion was based on 10,600 deaths and 1,800,000 disabling injuries. Included in the estimate of work-related accidents attributable to sleepiness were (a) motor-vehicle accidents due to shift work and on-the-job motor vehicle accidents (35.0% of total work-related accidents), (b) falls during work caused by sleepiness or inattention (12.6%), and (c) water and transportation accidents (4.8%). Therefore, of all work-related accidents, about 52.5% might potentially be related to sleepiness and then, accounting for 5565 fatalities and 945,000 disabling injuries, resulted in a cost of 24.7 billion. 

Falls accounted for 4100 deaths, or 22.8% (524,400) of the 2,300,000 disabling injuries, or 2.5 billion of the 10.9 billion cost of accidents in public places. Using the lower cost estimate of 41.6% of total accidents (218,150 disabling injuries) that occurred at maximum hours of sleepiness and 36.1% of fatal accidents (1480 fatalities) accounted for a cost total of 1.04 billion. The higher estimate of 54% of total public accidents was due to nocturnal sleepiness, which yielded 283,176 disabling injuries at a total cost of 1.34 billion. 

Therefore, the total estimated cost of accidents related to sleepiness was the sum total of all component costs. Thus, the lower estimate of cost related to sleepiness includes 1,907,072 disabling injuries and 24,318 fatalities, creating a cost of 43.15 billion in 1988. The higher estimate accounted for 2,474,430 disabling injuries, at a total cost of 56.02 billion (rounding would give a total of 43.2 billion and 55.9 billion, respectively). 

The ability to choose between extreme solutions and simpler, more easily implemented, solutions is hindered by the uncertainty still present in our knowledge of some key phenomena in the field of severe accidents listed in the preceding section. The practical feasibility of the studied solutions must always take account of inherent drawbacks compromising safety itself (in many cases a safety provision adopted with certain situations in mind is detrimental in other conditions) and cost (which, if excessive, could put a plant out of the market). 

The RCCAs of a reactor control protection system (CPS) are the most important elements of the reactor maintenance safe operation, which ensure control of reactor core power level and fast reactor core transfer from initial condition to sub critical condition during the accident. Share of RCCA in fuel reloading cost is 1-1,2%. However for CR materials choice it is necessary to take into account a possibility of inexpensive RCCA recovery or disposal. 

This paper focuses on the difference between relevant maintenance scenarios in terms of system production. Another important aspect in many cases could be safety and environmental issues. This is more difficult to quantify than production but if it is applicable to the system of interest the optimal solution can not be found without taking it into account. If this is to be integrated into one large cost model, more input is necessary, namely the expected (discounted) cost of e.g. production loss, environmental spill and accidents of various severities. 

Figure 3-1. The Vital Few concept shows that a few accidents account for the majority of the insured costs. (Reproduced with permission from Wausau Insurance Companies.)...

For accountability to work, there must be a way to count success or failure There must be an accounting system. Many companies use a cost accounting system (discussed further in Section 35-5) for accidents. Managers must receive the cost data for it to have relevance for the department or organization. Other data may provide a way to organize the performance data. Examples are using severity, type of accident, and location. The additional breakdown may help the manager identify what to correct. 

The need to use safety costs in management requires keeping track of safety costs. An accounting system must track actual expenditures. There are many kinds of safety costs as noted in Table 3-1 and Table 35-1. Injuries and illness incur costs. Changes incur costs. Training, inspections, accident investigations, and other safety prevention activities incur costs. As one completes each case or program, there should be a way to track the expenses incurred. 

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