SUMMARY

CHAPTER-8
INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS AND THEIR PREVENTION

Accidents are not chance happenings. Accidents can rarely be ascribed to

change happenings. Most accidents are actually caused by two broad factors
namely situational and personal factors. Comment [i1]: They are found in a
situation in which an accident takes place.
Comment [i2]: These are to be found
Definition of Accident in the individual who suffers an accident.

Psychologists think accident as an unexpected occurrence resulting in actual

physical damage to a living being or to a non-living or inanimate entity.
They define accident behavior or unsafe behavior of mean a behavior which
may lead to actual or near damage to living or inanimate things.
Psychologists strive to discover the situational and individual factors which
explain an accident.

Accident Records

The great interest in accidents that has been evinced by private and
governmental agencies has now resulted in a systematic recording of the
accident data. One such record form prescribed by American National
Standards Institute give an idea or how relevant information concerning any
accident can be recorded if it is to be useful in shedding light on the various
causes which lead to them.
In most countries, there are legal bindings or statues by the governmental
industrial organizations, variously known as the Factories Act, Safety Act,
the Health Act, and various other laws, which aim at ensuing the maximum
possible safety in a wide variety of Industrial situations which are considered
as unsafe.
Accident Rate helps to make a comparison of accident data in various
occupations. Through this the increase or decrease can easily be determined.

No. of Disabling injuries X 10,00,000

Accident Frequency Rate = -------------------------------------------------
Man hours worked

Situational Factors in Accidents

General Factors: The metropolitan Life Insurance Company, indicates to us
the main situational factors which may lead to accident. The causes of
accidents may be due to wrong handling of material, equipment, struck by
falling material or equipment, stumbling, falling, falls from heights, falls
from stairs, handling tools, dropping tools, acid burns, other burns, stepping
on or stinking objects, operations of hand trolleys, trucks, operations of
automobiles, operations in machinery, electricity, gas, foreign bodies in the
eyes etc.
Working schedules: It is well known fact that there is a close relationship
between the duration of the working period and the accident rate in the
industry. Accident rate increases with the lengthening of the work period.

Social Situational Factors: Many environmental factors like inadequate

illumination, high temperature, excessive humidity, lack of proper
ventilat5ion congested work p[lace, clumsy arrangements of equipments,
contribute largely to accidents; and this fact has been recognized for a long
time.. It is the interplay between the individual and the situational which
ultimately leads to accidents.

Individual Factors in Accidents

Psychological research is mainly focused on those personal characteristics of

the people with a view to predicting and preventing accidents. Some of the
major psychological characteristics or accident-related behavior which have
emerged from such studies are Faculty attitudes; Failure to recognize
potential hazards; Faculty judgments concerning space and distance;
impulsiveness; inability to pay constant attention to machines and tools;
irresponsibility, carelessness; nervousness and fear. Some other important
physical characteristics of the employee which are contributory factors in
accidents are defective vision, organic disease, slow reaction, high blood
pressure, senility or old age and getting fatigued very soon. There may be
drastic reduction in the accident rate if the defects are remedied by the
psychotherapy and by/or use of appropriate medicines or other corrective
measures.

Accident proneness

Some individual characteristic at he basis of certain behavioral tendencies in

a specific situation may cause accidents are termed as accident behavior. A
substantial body of research on accident behavior has led to the formulation
of a principle, known as the accident-proneness principle of hypothesis,
which was first put forward by the German Psychologists Marbe. The
hypothesis implies that some individuals have a personality type which
predisposes them towards having repeated accidents. The hypothesis
indirectly rears to the distribution of accidents in a given population. Four
distinct possibilities are: i) if accidents happen only by chance, then it means
that everyone is equally subject to them because of his o her bad luck. ii) It
results from the first one, that is when one suffers an accidents, one becomes
more cautious and is less likely to meet one in the future. iii) When an
individual meets with an accident, he may lose his confidence in himself and
may become prone to accidents in the future. iv) some individuals, because
of their biological and psychological make-up, are destined to have more
accidents than others.
Accidents happen to certain people because their behavioral characteristics
make them more susceptible to them; that is they happened to those whom
we have referred to as ACCIDENT PRONE people. Blum and Naylor
argue that there is often a careless reporting of accident data as well as
wrong application of the probability accident data as well as a wrong
application of the probability statistics. Maier says that to think of accident-
proneness as a single set of bio-psychological traits (or a personality type) is
going rather too far because if we exclude the many factors which contribute
to accidents- such as age, fatigue, temporary worry, frustration, inexperience
etc. it is doubtful if such a set of traits alone will cause accidents. Kerr has
pointed that the accidental proneness hypothesis must be supplemented by
the social situational factors. According to him, when an employee, freedom
of action termed as goal freedom alertness is restricted and when he is under
stressful conditions, his accident susceptibility is likely to increase; and this
is even more true of individuals who are accident prone.

Other personal factors

These factors may be combined in different proportions in different

individuals and may dispose an individual to accidents. Some of these
factors are given below:

Sensory-motor Ability: It assumes an over-riding importance,

Clumsiness, inadequate skill, slowness of motor impulse, and defective
sense organs may be contributory factors in many accidents.

Difference in Muscular and Perceptual Speed: Drake has pointed

out that the persons who show a considerable dissimilarity in their
perceptual and motor speed are more likely to be susceptible to accidents.
On the other hand, persons who were relatively slower in recognizing visual
patterns than they were n making motor or muscular responses were inclined
to the accident-unsafe.

Perceptual Style: Perceptual Style of an individual may be a factor in

accident susceptibility. A test to determine the perceptual style of an
individual was developed by Witkins and is well known as Witkins’ Field
Dependence Test.

Emotional Stability: The poor emotional adjustments and instability

result in an excessive preoccupation of the subjects with their own feelings,
which are closely, knit ed their own frustrations. Such states, even when they
last for a short duration, may be expected to lead to carelessness and they
may ignore safely measures and this behavior may well result in accident.
Emotional maladjustment in industrial situations may be caused by several
environmental and social-situational factors.

Intelligence: Studies show that those who have lower than required
intelligence for an occupation are more likely to be involved in accidents. It
is only when a person has less adequate intelligencer for performing a job
that the accident liability increases.

Frustration: Frustration may be a potent source of accidents and that

the entire spectrum of behaviors resulting from frustration should be
regarded as unsafe behavior. Repressiveness and fantasy making may make
an individual unmindful of safety.. The level of frustration of the employees
should be maintained at manageable level.

Previous Experience: Importance of appropriate training and

cautions acclimatization of the workers to their working equipment and
environment in the initial stages after joining an organization.

Age of Employees: Susceptibility to accidents declines with age. The

Accidents rates of the oldest and the youngest age groups are always higher

Vocational interest: Though it is difficult to reduce an individual’s

accident-proneness at any single factor or any psycho-biological type of
personality , there is no doubt at all that several personal factors may be at
work in different situations to precipitate an accident.
Strategies for Preventing Accidents

The objective of this is to isolate the various situational factors which are
likely to increase the possibility of accidents. Job analysis may become a
handy tool because it can reveal very clearly the actual operations which
have the potential of exposing a worker to accidents. Many statutory
provisions make it obligatory for the employers to provide adequate safety
measures. They are:
Personnel Selection: Personal factor plays an important role in
accidents. An employee’s susceptibility to accidents may be tested through
psychological tests.

Safety Training: It is concerned with teaching safer met6hods of

work and focusing on the hazards of an occupation.

Environmental Factors: Many accidents occur due to the over

crowdedness of the work place, faulty arrangements of the materials used in
processing industries, improper construction of passages, staircase, and
innumerable other arrangements that are found in the work place. A
congenial, stress-free mind comfortable working atmosphere should be
generated to prevent irritations and tensions of all works.

Involving Employees in Safety

Employees participation in the safety program can be done through safety
committees. Safety campaigns and safety habits.

Motivating safety behavior: Strategies are sterile if workers are not

motivated. Success of the safety measures depends upon an impartial system
of recording accidents and rewarding the workers who, or the plants or
departments which, have really achieved a good record in these matters.

Foreman’s Training: Foreman plays an important role in maintaining

safety. A more strict enforcement of safety rule may not solve the problem
of safety. In fact it may sometime worsen it. The group discussion approach
is the best strategy to overcome this general problem.

Case Study Approach: It is human tendency to come out with readily

available explanations of an accident without probing deeper into its causes.
This approach emphasizes the object6ive analysis of the various factors that
may come into play to find the real causes of accidents. It is time
consuming, laborious way of enquiring into the causes of an accident,
though this may be eminently desirable when enquiring about the causes of
fatal and near-fatal accidents. Information obtained by this approach to
accidents may often be very useful in enabling us to lay down safety rules
and standards of safe behavior.