Heinrichs Axioms

Yet this model has received some complaints from Lingard and Rowlinson (2005) who pinpoint that the abstract nature of this model fails to lay down a good foundation in identifying hazards in routine work. It also fails to suggest the appropriate safety measures under different circumstances (Briere et al. 2010). 

In 1974 suggested that an accident can be viewed as the last domino in the domino sequence where an accident is the result of a sequence of events. The first domino falls on the second one and the second one s fall leads to the fall of the third domino, so on and so forth. Bird suggested that workers will be safe so long as the first domino, i.e., site management does not fall (Briere et al. 2010). However, other researchers point out that there are many factors which lead to accidents. It is inappropriate to regard accidents as the last event in a sequence (Li 2006). It can be the case like the last straw being placed on the camel (Fig. 2.4). 

Heinrich (1980) proposed that more than one-fifth of the accidents are caused by a series of unsafe acts which finally lead to accidents occurs. He further elaborates that the degree of injury is a matter of probabihty. Nevertheless, Cooke and Lingard (2011) suggest that Heinrich s model focuses too much on the immediate circumstances surrounding the incidents, it fails to include unsafe conditions which also have systemic and organizational causes. Furthemmore, it is misguided to attribute incidents to interaction of multiple causes. 

Leather (1987) proposes that both endogenic and exogenic factors might affect the potential accident subject s acts and thoughts which might lead to accidents in Potential Accident Subject (PAS) model. The PAS stresses the dynamic relationship between various stakeholders on accidents, e.g., workers, managers within the constmction companies or even those people who work outside the construction companies. Under PAS model, any person even the victim himself can be the Potential Accident Subject . Furthermore, people s behaviors and attitudes 

Kjellen (2010) sheds fight on human and environment interaction from an operator s point of view. Under this model, people are viewed as an information processor who makes their own judgment in response to environment risks, 

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This [Heinrich s] fourth axiom is perhaps the most significant statement in the safety management profession. What Heinrich is saying here is that the degree of injury depends on luck, but that the accident can be prevented. What he further indicates by this axiom is that while the accident can be prevented, the severity is something over which we have little or no control. (McKinnon, 2000, p. 169)... 

This is Heinrich s accident causation theory and is operationalized in the following 10 statements known as the "Axioms of Industrial Safety" [2,3,20] ... 

Heinrich advocated a multidisciplinary approach to safety, focused on engineering, psychology, management, and salesmanship. The emphasis on psychology supported his theory that the majority of accidents were caused primarily by the unsafe acts or behavior of employees— the axiom on which his prevention philosophy was based. This axiom was central to Heinrich s domino model of accident causation, which depicted five dominos lined up in a sequence. As we discussed in Chapter 12 (Figures 12-7 and 12-8), unsafe acts/conditions were placed in the central position, preceded by inherited or acquired personal faults, and followed by an inci-... 

Heinrich, Petersen, and Roos (1969) compiled 10 axioms of industrial safety, the most pertinent one to this chapter being axiom number 4, which states ... 

In 1931, H. W. Heinrich drew up a list of 10 axioms based on his safety research, which was published in Industrial Accident Prevention, 3rd ed. (McGraw-Hill, 1950). Axiom 3 has great significance for the concept of near miss incidents and he was the first person to derive the following conclusion ... 

In the early days of safefy thinking, corresponding to the era of simple linear causality and the age of technology, cf.. Figure 2.1, accidents were seen as the culmination of a series of events or circumstances that would occur in a specific and recognisable order. Heinrich actually proposed a set of ten axioms of industrial safety, of which the first stated ... 

This theory is encapsulated in 10 statements by H. W. Heinrich, known as the "Axioms of Industrial Safety" presented in Table 3.1 [21]. Furthermore, H. W. 

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