Why Most Site Accidents Are Predictable: Breaking the Cycle of “Bad Luck” in African Industry
Think about a worker on a scaffold without a harness. If he does it today and doesn't fall, he thinks he is "skilled." If he does it for a week and doesn't fall, he thinks the safety officer is just being difficult.
In the busy construction sites of Lagos or the industrial plants of Port Harcourt when a tragedy happens you often hear people say It was just an accident or It was their time In the world of HSE Health Safety and Environment we know better The hard truth is that over 90 percent of site accidents are not random acts of God they are the final step in a long visible chain of failures
If you look closely at your workplace today the accident that might happen next month is already sending you signals We just have to be willing to see them Understanding why accidents are predictable is the first step to ensuring every worker who clocks in also clocks out safely to meet their family
The Science of the Near Miss
Safety experts often refer to the Safety Triangle or Birds Pyramid This theory proves that for every one major injury or fatality there were hundreds of near misses and thousands of unsafe acts that happened before it
Think about a worker on a scaffold without a harness If he does it today and doesn’t fall he thinks he is skilled If he does it for a week and doesn’t fall he thinks the safety officer is just being difficult But the law of averages is patient The accident is predictable because the unsafe behavior has become the standard If you have ten workers ignoring fall protection you don’t need a prophet to tell you that a fall is coming you just don’t know which day it will happen
The Swiss Cheese Model When Holes Align
Why do accidents happen even in safe companies It is usually explained by the Swiss Cheese Model Imagine your safety barriers like training PPE supervision and maintenance as slices of Swiss cheese Each slice has holes these are your weaknesses
The first hole is often a supervisor under pressure to meet a deadline who tells the crew to skip the morning Tool Box Talk The second hole is a piece of equipment with a faulty guard that hasn’t been reported because it still works The third hole is a new contractor who arrives on site tired because they traveled through the night to reach the job
Usually these holes don’t line up But one day the tired contractor uses the faulty machine on the day the supervisor isn’t watching The holes align and the accident happens This is predictable because if you have enough holes in your system eventually they will line up
The Warning Signs We Often Ignore
In the African industrial context there are specific red flags that make an accident highly predictable
The Boss Factor and Silence is a major issue In a culture where we highly respect seniority many junior workers see a hazard but are too afraid to tell their Boss or the site manager If your site culture does not allow a laborer to stop a crane operator from lifting a shaky load you are headed for a disaster A silent site is a dangerous site
Normalization of Deviance is another fancy term for we have always done it this way When workers start using a screwdriver as a chisel or jumping over a trench instead of using a bridge and nobody corrects them that deviance becomes the normal way of working Once the wrong way becomes the normal way a crash is inevitable
The Equipment Patch Patch Culture is also a silent killer We are ingenious at making things last longer than they should But in HSE managing a frayed cable with electrical tape or using a rusted jack is a gamble If the maintenance logs are empty but the machines are running 24/7 the mechanical failure is already scheduled
Moving from Reactive to Predictive
If most accidents are predictable it means they are also preventable To change the narrative on your site you must move from being Reactive which is fixing things after someone gets hurt to being Proactive which is fixing things before they happen
First you must reward the Near Miss Reporting Instead of punishing someone for almost making a mistake thank them for reporting it That report is a free lesson that saves you from a real funeral later
Second you must focus on Leading Indicators Don’t just track how many days you went without an accident Track how many safety audits were done how many people were trained and how many hazards were fixed this week
Third is the power of Stop Work Authority Give every worker a Safety Card Let them know that if they see a hole in the Swiss cheese they have the power to stop the job until that hole is plugged
Final Thoughts Safety is Not Luck
Safety is a result of intentional choices When we stop looking at accidents as bad luck and start seeing them as the logical result of ignored warnings we take back control Your site doesn’t have to be the next headline in the news By watching the small things you prevent the big things from ever happening
The next accident is currently a near miss happening on your site right now Will you catch it in time
