Wh

hat is a Near Miss ?

A ne
ear miss is an unplanned event that did not result in injury, illne ess, or dama age – but had d the potentiaal to do so.
Onlyy a fortunate break in the chain of even nts prevented an injury, ffatality or dam
mage; in othe er words, a m
miss that was s
noneetheless very y near. Althou
ugh the label of 'human error'
e is commmonly appliedd to an initiating event, a ffaulty
proceess or system m invariably permits or coompounds th he harm, and should be thhe focus of immprovement. Other
familliar terms forr these events is a "close call", or in th
he case of mo
oving objectss, "near collission" or a nea
ar hit.

You will discoverr that the dattabase conta

ains a wide ra
ange of differrent unsafe cconditions mixed with a lo
ot of
uninttended eventts, which almmost resulted in an accideent.

Therre are four diffferent situations as below

w-

1. Unsa
afe Conditio
on
2. Unsa
afe Act
3. Nearr miss
4. Acciident

In orrder to explain the differen

nces between the terms we
w have five pictures.

If we
e are able to spot
s the uns
safe conditio
ons there is a high likely h
hood that we
e can avoid tthe unsafe a
act, near
misss and accide ent

If we
e are able to alert
a each other and have
e a high safe
ety awarenesss we would b
be able to sto
op the unsaffe act,
avoid
ding the near miss and accident
a

If we
e miss the two
o first opporttunities we sttill have one more chance e to avoid thhe accident. Namely: rep
port and
discu
uss the near miss, in ordder to preventt the persona al injury or acccident to hu
ull and machinery.

Picture #1
As w
we are fully aw ware that the
e way accidents are build up can be mmuch more co omplex than perceiving th
he series of
even
nts like this - but as a starrt we believe most of the reasons
r can be found byy spotting the hazardous w
working
proce
esses from the left

Use the above pictures and discuss

d on bo
oard if you ag
gree upon ou
ur terms and how to preve
ent the near miss by
spottting the uns
safe act and
d - condition.

The drawings shoould only be conceived as a way to illustrate the d

different terms. You could
d find many o
other errors
when
n it comes to
o good safety
y behavior

Invis
sible or "h
hard to see
e" conditions

Conssider also the

e unsafe con
nditions, wh
hich are hard to see or invvisible in your daily work.

Cou
uld be:

-ap poorly written procedure e, which don''t comply with h the way thiings are done e operationaally
-ab bad risk asse essments, which
w the ratin
ngs don't tak
ke ownership p upon
- fatiigue, which affects
a the way people reacts or think
- rec
cklessness, which devastates the ove erall safety
- commplacency. You have do one it many tiimes before without
w any a
accidents, soo why should d it be dangerrous?
- uns spoken acce ept. If the leaaders on boa ard don't interrfere with un safe acts, th
he behavior w would be
"the way people dod things aro ound here"
- bus syness whicch in many ca ases contribu utes to short cuts and don n't think a mo
oment before e doing the jo
ob
- badd radio discipline which can contribu ute to people gets too mu ch informatio on or not suffficient
- lack of training
g/education, which can contribute
c to people are nnot skilled to d
do the job an
nd therefore puts
themmselves and others
o in dan
nger

Picture #2
Pictture #3

Picture #4
Picture #5