Wha are Accidents?

How often do we hear someone say ‘It was an accident! It couldn’t be helped’? Others will take the view that an accident is an act of God over which we have no control. Generally, as far as the accident victim is concerned, accidents have the following characteristics. They are unforeseeable, unintended, unexpected and unplanned.

ACCIDENT DEFINITIONS

A number of definitions of the term ‘accident’ have been put forward over the years, indicating the differing perceptions and views that exist. The following are some examples.

1. Fenton v Thorley & Co Ltd (1903) AC 443

Some concrete happening which intervenes or obtrudes itself upon the normal course of employment. It has the ordinary everyday meaning of an unlooked-for mishap or an untoward event which is not expected or designed by the victim.

2. Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA)

An unplanned and uncontrolled event which has led to or could have caused injury to persons, damage to plant or other loss.

3. American Institute of Loss Control

An unintended or unplanned happening that may or may not result in personal injury, property damage, work process stoppage or interference, or any combination of these conditions, under such circumstances that personal injury might have resulted.

4. Little Oxford Dictionary

An event without apparent cause; an unexpected event; an unintentional act; a mishap.

5. Health and Safety Unit, University of Aston in Birmingham

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, business interruption or any combination of these effects.

It is easy to conclude from these definitions that, in addition to their resulting in many cases from a breach of the law (eg failure to guard machinery properly), most accidents represent some form of loss to an organisation. That loss can be quantified in financial terms, eg increased employer’s liability premiums, fines in the courts, business interruption types of loss, damage costs, sickness absence costs and production losses.

INCIDENTS

An incident is a form of accident or situation that does not necessarily result in injury to people. The term ‘incident’ can be defined as ‘an undesired event that could (or does) result in loss’, or ‘an undesired event that could (or does) downgrade the efficiency of the business operation’. Typical incidents could include, for instance, a minor fire, flooding of a warehouse or an adverse product liability incident involving a company’s products, which may result in those products being recalled at very short notice. This has been seen in the past with vehicles, food products and certain electrical appliances. Such incidents result in adverse publicity, recall costs and substantial costs in restoring public confidence in that product.

‘HAZARD’, ‘DANGER’ AND ‘RISK’

Any strategy in preventing accidents at work must draw a distinction between ‘hazard’, ‘danger’ and ‘risk’. A ‘hazard’ is defined as ‘the result of a departure from the normal situation, which has the potential to cause death, injury, damage or loss’. ‘Danger’ is defined as ‘liability or exposure to harm; a thing that causes peril’. ‘Risk’, on the other hand, has a number of definitions – ‘a chance of bad consequences’, ‘exposure to mischance’, ‘exposure to chance of injury or loss’, ‘the probability of harm, damage or injury’ or ‘the probability of a hazard leading to personal injury and the severity of that injury’.

Accidents, therefore, are concerned with two specific aspects – namely the actual danger that exists at a particular point in time and, secondly, how people perceive and measure risk. Typical examples of dangerous situations could include an unfenced floor opening, a badly guarded machine, a slippery floor or, in driving situations, snow on the road. However, it is not until people come on to the scene that an accident can take place. Everyone takes risks in varying degrees, and these may be associated with such factors as individual human traits, training and upbringing. The people-related causes of accidents can, therefore, include over-confidence, ignorance, carelessness, lack of training, apathy and inappropriate attitudes to danger and the risks that can be encountered. The philosophy that ‘It couldn’t happen to me!’ is encountered among many people