Day 131 - 06 Jun 95 - Page 52

     
     1
     2   MR. MORRIS:  Can I interrupt?  It was one to 100; every one per
     3        store per year was 100 accident book entries, if you
     4        remember.
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The difficulty I -- yes, that is quite right,
     7        because the eight I am mistaking was eight a month, rather
     8        than the two a month which appeared in the Colchester
     9        book.
    10
    11        (To the witness)  So, suppose it was one RIDDOR accident
    12        per 100 accidents worth putting in the accident book, but
    13        it might just be a burnt finger, or something of that kind,
    14        or a cut finger, which might be a relatively minor burn or
    15        cut, does your experience enable you to help me as to what
    16        other industries might have that kind of ratio, if any?
    17        A.  That is a comparatively low in terms of severity ratio,
    18        my Lord -- one reportable to about 100 minors.  If I could
    19        perhaps direct your attention to something that might -----
    20
    MR. MORRIS:  Page 6, I think it is.
    22
    23   THE WITNESS:  It might help if you look at page 6 of Successful
    24        Health and Safety Management, there has been a lot of
    25        academic work done on just this forecasting spread of
    26        injuries.  Although the terms are somewhat imprecise, it
    27        may help you to understand.  If you look at the three red
    28        triangles at the bottom, the one on the left by
    29        "Heinrich" -- which is still quoted as almost a bible from
    30        many safety professionals -- he forecast a spread of
    31        outcome from incidents, and you can see that he said one
    32        major to 29 minor to 300 near misses, if I can put it like
    33        that.  Frank Bird put in figures of property damage,
    34        because he acknowledged that property damage may be an
    35        outcome; under other circumstances, it could be an injury.
    36        Then James Tye Pearson did the same sort of thing to try
    37        and equate it up to UK standards.  So some work has been
    38        done on it, but it is difficult to be specific to
    39        industries, and so on.
    40
    MR. JUSTICE BELL:  With too many autobiographical glimpses, when
    42        one worked in the school holiday or university vacation in
    43        a building site, it would be thought laughable if you wrote
    44        down anywhere that you cut your finger or crushed your
    45        thumb when unloading a brick lorry, or something.
    46        A.  Indeed.  If you look at reporting rates from industry
    47        to industry, for instance, per 1,000 employees there are
    48        more accidents reported in the food industry than there are
    49        on construction sites, and yet we know how dangerous
    50        construction sites are.  The inevitable conclusion is that 
    51        they are just not reported on construction sites, which 
    52        I am sure HSE would acknowledge.  So it is very, very 
    53        difficult comparing industry with industry.
    54
    55   Q.   But you cannot give me any benchmark of another industry?
    56        A.  I can only suggest that we wait for the figures that
    57        are contained in the HSE report, my Lord.
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:  In terms of the ratio on those pages 6 and 7, which
    60        I was going to come on to, they talk about accidents, that