Occupational accidents: reporting Administration

Occupational Safety and Health Administration, The Pasadena Accident A Report to the President (Washington, DC US Department of Labor, 1990). 

USEPA-Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), 1999. Joint Chemical Accident Investigation Report on BPS, Inc., West Helena, Arkansas, April 1999. 

Because of the estimating procedure the National Safety Council statistics may undercount U.S. workplace fatalities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has also calculated worlq>lace fatality rates since the late 1930s but the scope of their survey has changed so dramatically that one cannot use the BLS data to identify a time trend. Nevertheless, the BLS s most recent data collection effort creates the most reliable source of information on fatal workplace accidents in the United States. 1 The BLS conducted a census of fatal occupational injuries for 1992 using data from death certificates, workers compensation claims, medical examiners records, autopsy reports, motor vehicle accident records, and OSH A and Mine Safety and Health Administration fatal injury reports. The BLS estimated Ae average worker in the United... 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reports that the majority of employees who injure their eyes were either not wearing any eye protection at the time of their accident, or weren t wearing the right kind of protective eyewear for the particular job. 

Other sources where a fleet safety director can find facts about causes of accidents are the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Bureau Labor of Statistics, summaries and reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety Health (NIOSH). 

Rough estimates only exist for occupational injuries that are not required to be reported to the national safety administrations. The ratio between recordable cases (three lost workdays in West Germany) and first aid accidents is supposed to be approximately 1 9 (Skiba 1985) or 1 10 (Krause 1974). Similar results were indicaded by other studies. The U.S. Industrial Safety Research Council (Swain 1985) reports a relationship of 1 10 for disabling and nondisabling injuries. Heinrich (1959) suggests a figure of 1 serious accident to every 29 nonserious accidents in the U.S. industries. The relationships between serious and minor injuries, near misses and unsafe acts, will be discussed in detail in a later section. 

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