6.1.1 Safety and the potential for injury
Heinrich (1959), a safety engineer in America , used statistics in the 1920s to construct the "accident pyramid". His description of the relationship between major, minor and no-injury accidents was an attempt to show how important the injury potential is in the process of accident prevention.
Figure 1 Heinrich accident pyramid
During the 1960's, another U.S. insurance industry specialist, Frank Bird (1980), brought Heinrich's theory up to date. He did this through a survey of 1,700,000 accidents and devised his "accident ratio" which, although not identical to Heinrich's, showed that the same pattern applied.
Figure 2 Bird accident ratio
Bird's (1980) pyramid is now accepted as the standard example because it not only shows more clearly the number of "hidden " accidents, but also indicates the huge loss potential of property damage incidents.
To correctly apply any techniques of accident prevention, it is vital that we properly identify weaknesses in the organisational system that have potential for loss. As with the old quality adage, it is no use measuring it unless we intend to fix it!
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