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CHAPTER 3 ACCIDENT
CAUSATION THEORIES
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
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Accidents in Construction
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Why do accidents happen in construction?
Physical hazards
Environmental hazards
Human factors
No safety regulations or poor ones
Poor communication within, between, and among various
trades working on a job site
Accidents should not be viewed as inevitable just
because hazards exist.
For every accident that occurs, there is a cause.
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Theories of Accident Causation
The most widely known theories of accident
causation:
Domino theory
Human factors theory
Accident / incident theory
Epidemiological theory
Systems theory
Combination theory
Behavioral theory
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Domino Theory
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Herbert W. Heinrich Travelers Insurance
Company
In the late 1920s, studying reports of 75,000
workplace accidents, he concluded the
following:
88% of accidents are caused by unsafe acts committed
by fellow workers
10% of accidents are caused by unsafe conditions
2% of accidents are unavoidable
Contemporary research considers domino
theory as outdated however todays more
widely accepted theories can be traced back to
Heinrichs study.


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Axioms of Workplace Safety
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Conclusions laid foundation for Axioms of
Industrial Safety (came to be known as the
Domino Theory)
1. Injuries result from a completed series of factors, one of which
is the accident itself.
2. An accident can occur only as the result of an unsafe act by a
person or a physical or mechanical hazard, or both.
3. Most accidents are the result of unsafe behavior by people.
4. An unsafe act by a person or an unsafe condition does not
always immediately result in an accident or injury.
5. The reasons why people commit unsafe acts can serve as helpful
guides in selecting corrective actions.
6. The severity of an accident is largely fortuitous, and the accident
that caused it is largely preventable.


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Axioms of Workplace Safety
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
7. The best accident prevention techniques are analogous with the
best quality and productivity standards.
8. Management should assume responsibility for safety because it
is in the best position to get results.
9. The supervisor is the key person in the prevention of workplace
accidents.
10. In addition to the direct costs of an accident (i.e., compensation,
liability claims, medical costs, and hospital expenses), there are
also hidden or indirect costs.
Heinrich believed any safety programs taking all
10 axioms into consideration will likely be
effective.

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Domino Theory
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Five factors in sequence leading to an accident:
1. Ancestry and social environment. Negative character traits that
may lead people to behave in an unsafe manner can be inherited
(ancestry) or acquired as a result of the social environment.
2. Fault of person. Negative character traits, whether inherited or
acquired, are why people behave in an unsafe manner and why
hazardous conditions exist.
3. Unsafe acts and mechanical or physical hazards. Unsafe acts
committed by people and mechanical or physical hazards are the
direct causes of accidents.
4. Accident. Typically, accidents that result in injury are caused by
falling or being hit by moving objects.
5. Injury. Typical injuries resulting from accidents include
lacerations and fractures.
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Domino Theory
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Two central points:
Injuries are caused by preceding factors
By removing the unsafe act or hazardous condition,
the action of these preceding factors is negated and
the accidents/injuries are prevented.
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Domino Theory - Example
Construction Products Company (CPC) is a
distributor of lumber, pipe and concrete
products.
Warehouse personnel load most of the
orders by hand therefore they are required
to wear personal protective gear.
Management observed increases in minor
injuries among personnel during summer
months. However during the last summer
they suffered from the serious back injuries
of two workers.
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Domino Theory - Example
Investigation revealed a series of events and
a central causal behavior which created a
domino effect.
Personal protective gear becomes uncomfortable
due to hot weather and loaders take it off.
This situation increases the number of minor
injuries but management does not pay attention due
to the nature of injuries. Therefore it was probably
inevitable to suffer from more serious injuries.
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Domino Theory - Example
Solution:
Removing the causal factor - the failure of warehouse personnel to use
their personal protective gear during summer months.
Forming a committee.
Committees recommendations:
1. Provide all warehouse personnel with training on the importance and
proper use of personal protection
2. Require warehouse supervisors to monitor the use of personal protection
gear more closely
3. Establish a company policy that contains specific and progressive
disciplinary measures for failure to use required personal protection gear
4. Implement several heat reduction measures to make warehouses cooler.

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Human Factors Theory
Attributes accidents to a chain of events
ultimately caused by human error.
Consists of three broad factors that lead to
human error:
Overload
Inappropriate Response
Inappropriate Activities
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Factors Leading to Human Error
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Inappropriate
Activities
Overload
Inappropriate
Response
Human Error Factors
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Overload
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Capacity product of such factors as a
persons natural ability, training, state of mind,
fatigue, stress, and physical condition.
Load consisting of tasks for which a person
is responsible and added burdens resulting
from environmental factors (noise, heat),
internal factors (personal problems, stress), and
situational factors (unclear instructions).
State the product of a persons motivational
levels.
Overload an imbalance between a persons
capacity at a any given time and the load that
the person is carrying in a given state.
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Inappropriate Response or
Incompatibility
How a person responds to a given situation
can cause or prevent an accident.
Inappropriate response occurs when:
A person detects a hazardous condition but does
nothing to correct it
A person disregards an established safety
procedure.
Incompatibility of a persons workstation
with regard to size, force, reach, feel and
similar factors can lead to accidents and
injuries.
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Inappropriate Activities
Human error can be result of inappropriate
activities.
Examples:
Person who undertakes a task that he / she does not
know how to do.
A person who misjudges the degree of risk
involved in a given task and proceeds on that
misjudgment.
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Human Factors Theory
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Human Factors Theory -
Example
Jones Cabinets & Construction Company
sees rapid growth in sales which
overwhelmed companys work force.
New teams of cabinet makers and installers
hired.
Authorized unlimited overtime.
Numbers of accidents and injuries
increased.
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Human Factors Theory -
Example
Investigation revealed human errors in the
three categories:
Overload:
Employees working beyond their personal limits and beyond
their capabilities.
Stress, insufficient training and fatigue
Inappropriate response:
Carpenters removing the safeguards to speed up construction.
Inappropriate activities:
Assigning employees to duties for which they are not fully
trained
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Accident / Incident Theory
Extension of human factors theory
Developed by Dan Petersen
New elements:
Ergonomic traps
The decision to err
Systems failures
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Accident/Incident Theory
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Accident / Incident Theory
Some of the reasons why systems may fail:
1. Management does not establish a comprehensive
safety policy
2. Responsibility and authority with regard to safety
are not clearly defined
3. Safety procedures, such as measurement, inspection,
correction, and investigation, are ignored or given
insufficient attention.
4. Employees do not receive proper orientation
5. Employees are not given sufficient safety training
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Accident / Incident Theory -
Example
Panhandle Precast Concrete has developed a
well-earned reputation as a safe company.
When the safety manager of the firm, Jack
Bond, was elected as the president of a
statewide safety organization, safety
problems within the firm began.
Jack Bond neglected his duties at PPC.
Workers stopped following the safety
precautions once they realized he had
stopped observing and correcting them.

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Epidemiological Theory
Epidemiology: Study of causal relationships
between environmental factors and disease.
Epidemiological theory holds that the
models used for studying and determining
these relationships can also be used to study
casual relationships between environmental
factors and accidents.
Components:
Predisposition Characteristics
Situational Characteristics
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Epidemiological Theory
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Epidemiological Theory -
Example
Jane Andrews was the newest member of the
loading unit for Construction Products, Inc.
She had 2 days of training on proper lifting
techniques before beginning the work and
mandatory use of back-support belts
Her supervisor and colleagues pressured to
disregard the proper lifting methods she learned in
training.
She followed her supervisor and after 2 months had
to undergo major surgery to repair two ruptured
disks.
Predisposition factor: Her susceptibility to pressure
from her coworkers and supervisor
Situational factors: Peer pressure and priorities of
supervisor


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Systems Theory
System a group of regularly interacting and interrelated
components that together form a unified whole.
An accident may occur as a system which is composed of:
Person
Machine
Environment
The likelihood of an accident to occur is determined by how
these components interact.
Example: A worker who temporarily replaces an experienced
crane operator increases the probability of an accident.

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Systems Theory
The primary components of the systems model are
the person, machine, environment, and information;
decisions; risks; and the task to be performed.
Each of these components has a bearing on the
probability that an accident will occur.

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Systems Theory
Factors which should be considered before
collecting information, weighing risks and
making a decision:
job requirements
the workers abilities and limitations
the gain if the task is successfully accomplished
the loss if the task is attempted but fails
the loss if the task is not attempted

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Systems Theory - Example
Construction Service Company (CSC) makes customized trusses
for residential construction jobs.
Workers including the apprentices use manually operated
machines which causes two problems:
It is difficult for even experienced workers to make clean accurate cuts
Machines are so old that they frequently break down.
While working under a major contract, an apprentice gets
careless and runs his hand into the saw blade.
The person-machine-environment chain:
Person involved was inexperienced.
Machine involved was old and prone to breakdown
The environment was stressful and pressure-packed.
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Combination Theory
Often the cause of an accident cannot be
adequately described by one theory.
Differences between the theory and reality
may exist.
Combination theory helps explain the actual
cause of an accident by combining different
parts of several theories.
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Combination Theory - Example
Crestview Construction Company (CCC) maintains
four large warehouses .
Ventilation of these warehouses are important and the
vent filters need to be changed periodically.
Changing the vents filter involves two potential
hazards:
Unvented dust and fumes can make breathing difficult.
Vents are located 110 feet above the ground level, which
can be accessed through a narrow cat walk that has knee-
high guardrails.
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Combination Theory - Example
CCC has well defined rules which are strictly enforced.
However an employee fell from the catwalk while he was trying
to change one of the filter. His lifeline held him for 20 minutes.
When he panicked and tried to pull himself up he knocked the
buckle of his safety harness open and fell to the concrete floor,
breaking his neck.
Critical factors:
Absence of supervisor
Inexperience of worker
A conscious decision by the worker to disregard the safety
procedures
A faulty buckling mechanism on the safety harness
An unsafe design (only a knee-high guardrail on the catwalk)
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Behavioral Theory
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Referred to as Behavior-based safety
(BBS)
E. Scott Geller Safety Performance
Solutions, Inc., and professor of
psychology
Believes in 7 basic principles of BBS:
1. Use intervention that is focused on employee
behavior.
2. Identify external factors that aid in understanding
and improving employee behavior.

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Behavioral Theory
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
3. Direct behavior with activator or events antecedent to
the desired behavior, and motivate employees to
behave as desired with incentives and rewards that
follow desired behavior.
4. Focus on the positive consequences that result from
the desired behavior as a way to motivate employees.
5. Apply scientific method to improve attempts at
behavioral interventions.
6. Use theory to integrate information rather than to
limit possibilities.
7. Plan interventions with the feelings and attitudes of
the individual employee in mind.
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BBS and ABC Model
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Behavior-based safety trainers and consultants
teach the ABC model (or three-term
contingency) as a framework to understand and
analyze behavior or to develop interventions
for improving behavior. As given in BBS
principle 3the A stands for activators or
antecedent events that precede behavior (B),
and C refers to the consequences following
behavior or produced by it. Activators direct
behavior, whereas consequences motivate
behavior.

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BBS and ABCO Model
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety
Outcome refers to the longer-term results of engaging
in safe or unsafe behavior. For example, an
antecedent of a sign requiring employees to wear
safety goggles could produce the behavior of putting
on the goggles, the consequence of avoiding an eye
injury, and the outcome of being able to continue
working and enjoying time with the family. One the
other hand, the consequence of not wearing goggles
could be an eye injury with a potential outcome of
blindness, time off the job, and a reduced quality of
life. Failure to address the issue of outcomes
represents a lost opportunity to give employees a
good reason for engaging in safe behaviors.

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Behavioral Theory - Example
Jack Coker decided to apply the ABC
model in turning the unsafe behavior pattern
of the workers (not wearing hard hats) in
Bonded Builders, Inc.
1. He removed the old Hard Hat Area signs and
replaced them with newer, more noticeable signs.
2. He scheduled a brief seminar on head injuries in
which he told a story of two employees. One was
in a hospital bed surrounded by family members
he did not even recognize; the other was shown
enjoying a family outing with happy family
members.
CEE 698 Construction Health and Safety