Record Keeping and Accident Investigation

The safety officer should analyze each accident report and classify it using a systematic method. Occupational injuries should be divided into type, source, and cause. Type refers to the kind of injury involved and usually falls into one of the following classes  

Source refers to those actions or objects usually leading to the accident, including the following  

Cause refers to the action, the lack of action, or the defect that led to the accident (these do not necessarily involve human injury). Usually causes can be divided into the following three groups  

The statistics can be divided according to the organizational structure of the utility, including the names of the supervisors. The departments can then be arranged in descending order from those having the highest cost of injuries to those with the lowest. 

Additional data that can be included in the report are the name of the injured employee, medical costs, type of injury, and the name of the supervisor. Quarterly reports on vehicle accidents should include a comparison between the current and the previous year. The statistics should include the number of preventable, non-preventable, and total accidents by department. Reports should be circulated to management and the entire supervisory force. In addition, the reports can be used at monthly safety meetings. Smaller utilities may not have sufficient data to publish reports as frequently as every three months other techniques can be used to bring the information to the attention of the employee group. Specific records and reports include employee accident records, occupational injury reports, vehicle accident reports, and public injury reports. 

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The primary duties of the accident review board is to determine the cause and responsibility of serious accidents or a pattern of accidents, and to make recommendations that will prevent similar occurrences. The members of the board are typically supervisor level employees appointed by management. Members must be objective in performing their duties. The board may hold accident hearings, as discussed in the section Record Keeping and Accident Investigation in this chapter. 

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