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Accident and Loss Statistics

❑ Accident and loss statistics are important measures of the effectiveness of
safety programs. These statistics are valuable for determining whether a
process is safe or whether a safety procedure is working effectively.

❑ Many statistical methods are available to characterize accident and loss

performance. The three systems considered here are:
✓ OSHA incidence rate
✓ Fatal accident rate (FAR)
✓ Fatality rate, or deaths per person per year

❑ All three methods report the number of accidents and/or fatalities for a fixed
number of workers during a specified period.

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Accident and Loss Statistics

OSHA Incidence Rate
❑ OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the
US government. OSHA is responsible for ensuring that workers are provided
with a safe working environment.
❑ The OSHA incidence rate is based on cases per 100 worker-years. A worker-
year is assumed to contain 2000 hours (50 working weeks/year × 40
hours/week). The OSHA incidence rate is therefore based on 200,000 hours
of worker exposure to a hazard.
❑ The OSHA incidence rate provides information on all types of work-related
injuries and illnesses, including fatalities.
𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑛𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑
𝑂𝑆𝐻𝐴 𝐼𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 & 𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 = 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 ×200,000
𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝐴𝐿𝐿 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑒
𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑

𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑡
𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 ×200,000
𝑂𝑆𝐻𝐴 𝐼𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑛 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 = 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝐴𝐿𝐿 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑒
𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑

Lost Workdays (consecutive or not) days after but not including the day of the
injury or the illness during which the employee would have worked but could
not because of occupational injury or illness 30

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Accident and Loss Statistics

FAR
❑ Fatal accident rate (FAR) is used mostly by the British chemical industry
❑ Does not include work-related injuries and illnesses (only fatalities)
❑ The FAR reports the number of fatalities based on 1000 employees working
their entire lifetime for a total of 50 years. Thus the FAR is based on 108
working hours (50 working weeks/year × 40 hours/week × 50 years/person’s
career × 1000 person).

𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 × 108

𝐹𝐴𝑅 =
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝐴𝐿𝐿 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑

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Accident and Loss Statistics

Fatality Rate (deaths per person per year (i.e.
deaths per person-year))
❑ This system is independent of the number of hours actually worked and
reports only the number of fatalities expected per person-year.

𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟

𝐹𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑒 =
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛

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Accident and Loss Statistics

Notes
❑ Both the OSHA incidence rate and the FAR depend on the number of
exposed hours. An employee working a ten-hour shift is at greater total risk
than one working an eight-hour shift.
❑ A FAR can be converted to a fatality rate (or vice versa) if the number of
exposed hours is known.
❑ The OSHA incidence rate CANNOT be converted to a FAR or fatality rate
because it contains both injury and fatality information.

A process has a reported FAR of 2. If an employee works a standard 8-hr shift

300 days per year, compute the deaths per person per year (deaths per
person-year).

Deaths per person per year = (8 hr/person-day) x (300 days/yr) x (2 deaths/108 hr)
= 4.8 x 10-5 deaths per person-year

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Accident and Loss Statistics

Statistics

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Accident and Loss Statistics

Statistics, cont’d

The table indicates that canoeing is much more dangerous than traveling by motorcycle.
This phenomenon is due to the number of exposed hours. Canoeing produces more
fatalities per hour of activity than traveling by motorcycle. However, the total number of
motorcycle fatalities is larger because more people travel by motorcycle than canoe. 35

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Accident and Loss Statistics

Example

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Accident and Loss Statistics

In-Class Assignment

The FAR for travel by car is reported as 57 while that for

travel by air is 240
1) If the average speed of travel is 50 mph by car and
250 mph by air, determine the deaths per million
miles travel by car or air.
2) If you are required to make a round trip from
Alexandria to Aswan, which is the safer mode of
transportation as indicated by the statistics?

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Accident and Loss Statistics

In-Class Assignment-Solution
1) Calculations

 57deaths   1hr   106 miles 

Car −      = 0.0114
deaths
 10 hr   50miles   MillionMiles 
8 MillionMiles

 240deaths   1hr   106 miles

Air −      = 0.0096
deaths
 10 hr   250miles   MillionMiles 
8 MillionMiles

2) For a fixed distance, air travel is the safest mode (1000 km ~ 10

hours by car or 2.5 hours by air)

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Assignment 1 (from the soft copy)

# 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.9, 1.25, 1.26

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