Near accidents: definition

Not only have many safety practitioners used the 300 29 1 ratios in their statistical presentations, but they have also misconstrued what Heinrich intended with respect to the terms major injury, minor injury, and no-injury accidents. In each edition, Heinrich gave nearly identical definitions of the accident categories to which the 300 29 1 ratios apply. This is how the definition reads in the fourth edition. 

It is difficult to measure near-accident reporting reliability, because the definition of what is a reportable near accident is fuzzy. It is mainly left to the discretion of the reporter. Instead, we apply measures of the reporting propensity, i.e. the employees willingness to report. 

In order to define an accident database, we have to specify the types of facts or data elements to be included in each accident or near-accident record. We also have to specify a data type for each element. This tells us whether the data is coded according to a nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio scale or stored in free text. Both these specifications are included in the so-called database definition. Each data element and its associated data-type specification are... 

Before scientifically sound research can be performed on a subject, clear definitions must be set. Although, this may seem a logical step, Osborn (Osborn et al., 1988) highlighted that this has been a stumbling block for research in safety science since its inception. Definitions of concepts like accidents, incidents, near misses, risk, and safety, are known in the field of safety science, but interpreted differently in various situations. Unclear and ambiguous definitions lead to misinterpretations and confusion and must be avoided. Therefore, some general concepts used in safety science and the definitions used in this thesis are discussed in this Section. In the remainder of this thesis specific concepts will be defined where appropriate and can also be found in a list of acronyms and definitions presented in the beginning of this thesis. 

This definition is meant to include both accidents and near misses. Thus, the definition covers all cases where there was, or could have been, injury, damage to property, or the release of hazardous or toxic material to the environment. 

Given an understanding of the definition of a near miss, enhanced by specific examples for a facility, it may be possible to estimate how many near misses one might expect to be reported compared with the number of accidents that occur. A greater number of erroneous acts or undesirable conditions may occur compared to the number of near misses. Figure 5-1 illustrates the relationships among accidents, near misses, and nonincidents. 

Words and phrases such as incident, accident, and near miss tend to be used quite loosely in general conversation. They also tend to have different connotations in English, American, and Canadian usage. However, in the context of formal incident investigation and analysis such words need to be tightly defined. The definitions used for these terms in this chapter are provided below. 

It is apt at this stage to redefine the modem safety management terms and definitions used in this book. There still exists confusion in the safety industry concerning the words accident and incident. The term incident is so widely used and misused that the term near miss has almost become obscure. Because near-miss incident recording is one of the main elements in a world s best practice (i.e., meeting the highest international safety standards) SMS, it s important that it be redefined and renamed so that its important identity can be maintained and recognized. 

As stated by the principle of definition, if the real causes of accidents and near-miss incidents are not found, how can real solutions be proposed If all the contributing factors are not investigated, how can the causes of the events be identified and rectified ... 

Question 28, revised A driver of a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) is changing lanes. A passenger car driver near the CMV loses control, leaves the roadway, and is involved in an accident. The passenger car must be towed. Is the CMV considered to be involved rmder the definition of accident in 390.5 ... 

Based on the research, the following definition is suggested an accident is an unexpected, unplanned event in a sequence of events, that occurs through a combination of causes it results in physical harm (injury or disease) to an individual, damage to property, a near-miss, a loss, or any combination of these effects. ... 

This definition suggests, correctly, that an accident can occur without injury or damage resulting. Different terms are often used to describe an accident when there are no visible signs of injury or damage. Terms such as near miss , dangerous occurrence , and critical incident are in common use however, they are still accidents. 

Occupational safety legislation and people in industry have traditional recognized the adverse role of the accident in the workplace and have accepted the need to identify causation for the purpose of avoiding repetition. However, the statutes have generally resisted an attempt to provide a workable definition of an accident or have defined accident in terms of an outcome, i.e. injury, near miss, dangerous occrrrrence, incident, etc. 

Definitions The definitions of the terms used throughout this book will be repeated in a number of chapters. The reason for this seeming duplication is to clearly explain the concepts so that a clear understanding is given as to what an accident, near miss incident, or other concept is and how it is defined. 

The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) defines a near miss accident as an incident and further defines it as an undesired event that, under slightly different circumstances, could have resulted in personal harm or property damage any undesired loss of resources. This definition seems to be a combination of the definitions of an accident and a near miss incident and is confusing. 

In analyzing these definitions, it is clear that the factors leading up to a contact are undesired and the resultant effects, after the contact, are also undesired. A simple yet effective way to distinguish between an accident and a near miss incident is that the accident results in a loss and the near miss incident doesn t. 

This is totally confusing. No wonder safety personnel are inclined to call all events incidents. Many refer to acddents/incidents to make sure aU events are covered, which is also misleading. Was the event an accident or a near miss incident This book endeavors to separate accident and near miss incident by clear definitions and descriptions of the two similar, yet very different, events. 

The main benefit is the reduction in the number of accidents that cause injury to employees and damage to property. Another major benefit of near miss reporting is that it is easier to get to the root causes of the event since nobody has been injured or killed, so there is no pressing need for a cover-up. According to Jones et al. (1999), case studies of offshore oil rigs have indicated a 60-percent reduction in disabling injuries after the 10-fold increase in near miss incident reporting. Other reports indicate that there is a definite correlation between the number of near miss incidents reported and the reduction in the number of serious injuries experienced. The results... 

International research by many safety practitioners has identified a definite ratio between injury-related accidents and near miss incidents. Each serious injury-related accident is an indication that there have been some minor injury-related accidents, more property damage accidents, and plenty of near miss incidents. Below the waterline are numerous high risk situations that have gone unnoticed and untreated. 

The website http //www.ntsb.gov/events/aberdeeii/ppt presentations.htm includes presentations to the NTSB about the accident. There may be individual and team actions and failed defences that contributed to the incident, however these may never truly be known. As the speed of impact was near supersonic, it destroyed much of the physical evidence that could have provided a more definitive analysis of technical and human causal factors. 

The argumentation so far can be encapsulated as a particular perspective on safety that 1 will call Safety-1, for reasons that soon will become obvious. Safety-1 defines safety as a condition where the number of adverse outcomes (accidents/incidents/ near misses) is as low as possible. (While as low as possible sounds nice, it really means as low as affordable, where what is affordable is determined by considerations of cost, of ethics, of public opinion, etc. As low as possible is therefore not as nice or as simple as it sounds, but that is another story.) It follows from this definition that the purpose of safety management is to achieve and maintain that state, i.e., to reduce the number of adverse events to an acceptable level. Examples of Safety-1 are easy to find. A common dictionary definition is that safety is the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss, where safe somewhat redundantly is defined as free... 

It always seems to be difficult to maintain a strict separation between that which happens and its consequences. This becomes more of a problem the smaller the consequences are. In the case of an accident, the focus is clearly on the injury or the outcomes, which by definition are non-negligible. But in the case of a near miss the very definition ( a situation where an accident could have happened had there been no timely and effective recovery ) means that there will be no consequences, hence nothing to observe or rate. In such cases the label therefore refers to the activity in itself. 

Safety, in the guise of Safety-I, is defined as a condition where the number of adverse outcomes (accidents/incidents/near misses) is as low as possible. It follows from this definition that the phenomenology of Safety-I is the occurrence of adverse... 

The manifestations of Safety-1 are accidents, incidents, near misses, etc., as illustrated by the different levels of the safety pyramid or by lists proposed by specific safety programmes, such as the European Technology Platform on Industrial Safety (ETPIS) described above. We thus say that a system is unsafe if such events happen, particularly if accidents happen. Conversely we say that it is safe, if no such events happen - remembering Karl Welch s definition of safety as a dynamic non-event, discussed earlier. 

On the other hand, voluntary incident reports are shown as not very useful in their current form for evidence-based modeling. They may only be useful in the way that they are currently used, as the alerts for possible hazards in the daily operation of shipping. In order to make the incident reports useful for accident modeling, first they need to be prepared in a more systematic way that can address the causality of the mishaps, and second a more consistent definition of near-miss situation needs to be defined to reliably assign occurred mishaps to a specific type of accident. 

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