Document emb4NDM7pqrkkBp5OeqrKoMNp

60 Looking Ahead Research in Safety Fields in Which Safety Research Is Needed By E. C. BARNES Mgr., Industrial Hygiene, Atomic Power Dir., Westingfaoase Electric Corp., Pittsburgh, P*.; Chairman, Research Committee^ ASSE A large amount of effort is being ex pended m the continual battle to reduce the number and severity of injuries which re sult from accidents. Progress is being made, but it is slow; and sometimes it seems that the rate of new hazard creation is exceeding our ability to adequately protect the persons and equipment involved. The term Restarch implies a systematic investigation of some phenomenon or series of phenomena by the experimental methodThe term Safety Research might be inter preted to mean a systematic investigation of Safety by the experimental method. I won der if we, in our professional capacity, have really approached this over-all 'problem of preventing accidents and injuries by utilizing this basic approach ? Many commendable safety records have been set by various industries. According to Accident Facts-- 1953,TM the best no-injury record in industry is 28 million man-hours. Eight inlustries have established records of working 10 mil lion man-hours or more without lost-time in juries, and another twelve industries have each worked in excess of five million man hours continuously without such injuries. Each.y'ear new records are being recorded by the different industry groups, and Westinghouse is proud to have established the most recent record for the electrical industry at its 5}unbury plant, and the printing indus try at its Trafford plant Many of us have unquestionably asked how any group of people could.-oust without some kind of in jury during'these* long ;periods of time. Have competent-studies been made to eval uate the vsky of these extended periods of work without injury to a person? Is there some common denominator in these fine rec ords which would be of value to all indus tries? Were these situations created by some "super safety engineer"; by some exacting employment procedure which weeded out the accident producing individuals; by a manage ment directive that people must work safely ; or merely by some chance statistics^ dxstnbo- _ lion with a probability of almost^ zero? It' appears that research into the reasorn for such industry records might well reveal a pattern of accident prevention effort which would be of extreme significance. Such re search would have to be conducted by aa independent and unbiased group of persons. Their competence should be unquestioned, and they should have adequate facilities at their disposal for whatever type of study or analysis might suggest itself. A broad investigation of this nature might be thought of as Fsmdamenial Research such as that which produced the discovery of the neutron by Chadwick, or any of the many fundamental discoveries such as Ohm's Law or the theory of relativity. This need for Fundamental Research cer tainly exists; but, in the meantime; there are still many areas where practical and develop mental types of research catL.be pursued to the benefit of aeddent prevention efforts. Practically all injuries to persons result from an interplay of both personal factors and mechanical or physical factors; or, in eeso"raon terminology, unsafe acts and unsafe conditions. In'a study made by the National Safety Council of 4818* cases which re sulted in permanent impairment or death; 81 per cent involved, an unsafe condition while 87 per cent involved an tmfe act In other studies these percentages vary considerably, depending upon the completeness of the re ports; and one cannot minimize the inter* pretation placed upon such data by the re porters and the investigators. It is certaialj significant, however, that a large majority of serious injuries involve both an unsafe act and an unsafe condition.