Bird vs. Heinrich

Even 40 years after being published, the Bird domino sequence still seems to take a rear seat to Heinrich s original works, first published in 1929. Bird, a professional safety practitioner with more than 40 years of experience, conducted the most extensive safety research ever done to compile his loss causation domino sequence. Yet his canse and effect of accidents is not nsed as widely as Heinrich s. In fact, many programs all over the world still teach Heinrich in preference to Bird  

Heinrich is quoted in preference to Bird because Heinrich s principle snits organizations better. Heinrich, incorrectly quoted, or simplified, states that people are responsible for their own safety, and that unsafe acts of people canse the majority of accidents, and these acts are cansed by their ancestral background, and the fanlts of persons.  

to the contrary, states, An accident is caused by poor management control. He goes further and says that safety is management control of accidental loss. These sophisticated, well-researched statements are, nevertheless, still preempted by the Heinrich philosophy, as it is easier to bny in to Heinrich s placement of blame than to accept the fact that managanent has responsibility for safety. 

Revising a safety culture creates a workplace where workers are less inclined to make mistakes, as the risks are reduced and the focus is broadened to one that concentrates on the whole organization, aU anployees and managers, and which looks beyond the faults of workers and spreads the safety responsibility load across all levels of the organization. 

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