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  Peter Chisambara January 9, 2011 13:19

  Looking at it say from the context of road safety, safety statistics refer to information/data/facts say on the number of illnesses, injuries or deaths resulting from vehicle accidents at a particular time. For example, X deaths and Y injuries resulting from drunken driving during the festive season or Z accidents resulting from non-road worthy vehicles, poor roads or malfunctioning traffic lights during the year.
  
  Applying 'safety planning control' would look at these statistics and establish the drivers of such statistics. This will also involve at identifying ways to mitigate the risks or reduce the severity of such accident. It's about getting insights from the statistics on the table and formulating safety management plans and controls.
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  Deon Binneman January 9, 2011 12:03

  Over more than 80 years of safety experience in organizations around the Globe, a set of general safety statistics have emerged i.e. that 2% of Accidents can be caused by what we call Acts of God (uncontrollable), 10% by unsafe conditions and 88% caused by unsafe behavior.

  
  

  When you do your research, take a look at what is called the domino theory and also the theory of risks - Basically every fatal accident has been preceded by a number of dominos falling, especially in a situation where accidents had taken place.

  Here's a short snippet from one of my newsletters that might help:
  

   

  The Domino Theory is a theory used by Health and Safety practitioners to show how accidents or incidents happen in the workplace that has direct application for Reputational Risk Managers.

   

  For those of you who have ever played dominos or have seen it being stacked at Guinness World Book of Records events, will know that there is a number of rules vital to domino playing:

   

  - You have to line them up correctly. If you line them upcorrectly, they'll fall down nicely. Line them up incorrectly, and they won't fall against each other.

   

  - You've got to push the first domino in the right direction.

   

  - When you knock over the first domino, be ready for the rest of them to fall. They will fall, and if you are not ready.......

   

  Health & Safety specialists use this theory to demonstrate how an accident happens. This is how they depict it:

   

  - The first domino is the Failure to maintain work performance standards;

  - The second domino relates to Personal and Job Factors,which leads to;

  - The third domino - Unsafe practices and Unsafe conditions which leads to;

  - The fourth domino - Types of incidents which lead to;

  - The fifth domino falling which leads to Injury, illness or property damage.

   

  Thus the thread of an accident can be seen through a series of distinct stages. And so can most reputational incidents or accidents.

   

  The most important domino - LACK OF MANAGEMENT CONTROL is the domino that starts up the whole process. Shall we apply this to the word - Safety Planning control. Research has shown that bad planning is the number 1 cause for poor management.

   

  Does your company have in place the necessary controls for preventing potential safety and thus reputational incidents? I bet not. If not! Let me not scare you. Soon the domino WILL fall. Don't believe me? Do me a favour - for the next three (3) weeks cut out as many references to safety & reputational issues out of all your available newspapers and other media, and then make a collage out of it. Maybe then you will believe me.