|
I have had a couple of general observations this month. The first was around a recent surfing accident. I was paddling out for the first ride of the day; alongside a couple of other surfers I knew. We are all aware that surfboards can do a lot of damage if they hit someone at speed, and that you need to always maintain a safe distance from others. In my mind, the unsafe area is primarily in front of or behind the direction of travel. In this case a large wave hit the other rider, and the board travelled sideways and struck me, causing a long trip to A&E and seven stitches in my arm. The fault was completely mine for not maintaining a safe distance for the conditions. This can be re-stated as not a great risk assessment on my part.
The second observation is that the volume of traffic management seems to have increased in the last few months. I have had a few road works along my regular commute, and there seems to be a much greater area of management for the scope of the work being done. This can be thought of as a good thing, in that road users are given plenty of notice of roadworks, and more than sufficient space to reduce their speed.
However, one section of road gave me cause for some contemplation. Along a section of the main road with an 80km/hr limit, a private driveway was being sealed. On Monday morning, cones appeared for 200m on either side of the road, and the middle, with a reduction in speed to 30km/hr.
On Monday compliance was pretty good, with all the cars slowing down appropriately. The cones remained in place for a couple of days, with no sign of any work or workers in the area. Gradually compliance reduced, as drivers made their own decisions about safe speed given there were no workers or equipment in the area.
On Thursday, I passed a truck and some workers at the site, and once again general compliance was good. The work was completed on Thursday, but the cones and speed reduction remained. Friday and Saturday saw most drivers give a cursory touch of the brake pedal and they passed. By Sunday, most of the cones had been knocked over, and this caused traffic to really slow down as the cones posed a hazard in the middle of the road to traffic in both directions.
This may be a case of miscommunication between the construction and STMS teams, or a late change in plans for the contractor. The thought that occurred to me was the difference in risk assessment between the people who designed and implemented the traffic management plan, and the drivers themselves.
The STMS team seemed to take a one size fits all approach. This work is happening here, around this time, and we need to ensure safety over this period and stretch of road regardless of the actual conditions on the ground. The drivers took a more dynamic approach and responded to the condition of the road (which had remained unbroken), and the presence of workers at the site. They soon realized that the road surface was good, that there were no workers or equipment present, so traveled the section at a speed they considered safe irrespective of the posted limit.
My question to contemplate was this. Did the presence of the traffic management plan and the cones on the road make the job safer for both the workers and the road users or not? In general, do health and safety systems make a difference, or do people sometimes ignore them and make their own decisions on the fly?
To answer this question, I did a bit of research, and was somewhat staggered by what I found. A good measure of the rate of accidents and injuries is the ACC data. There are 168 hours in a week, and if we take off the 56 hours we are in bed, we spend 36% of our time at work, and 64% at home or in the community. Given if all other things are equal, we might expect that 36% of ACC claims to come from work related activities, and 64% at home or in the community.
However, the ACC data paints a different picture. Of the 2 million ACC claims in 2023, Only 10% occurred in the workplace. That’s right, only 10%. 38% came from injuries at home or in the community, 28% from falls at home or in the community, 23% from sport and recreation, and 2% on the road.
Some other interesting data. There are approximately 375 motor vehicle deaths per year, and annual ACC claims of $700M. For sport and recreation, the numbers are 71 deaths and an annual cost of $800M. Workplaces account for 73 fatalities a year and an annual cost of $985M.
I am not sure what to take away from all this. Motor vehicle accidents are only a small number of claims each year but have a disproportionately large societal impact. Sport and recreation and workplace data seem to be comparable to each other in terms of number of claims and impact.
However, the amount of resources committed to health and safety in workplaces far exceeds those spent on recreation and sport. Very little resources are allocated to preventing accidents and injuries at home, and maybe this should become a priority.
However, the big takeaway must be that the presence of health and safety systems and procedures makes a huge difference to the number of accidents and injuries in our workplaces as compared to our homes and in the community. People at home, or on a surfboard, or in a car, are perhaps not as good at risk assessments as they think they are!
But will I ever see road cones in the surf directing me to stay in my lane?
Paul Duggan, General Manager
Link to ACC: Injury Claim Statistics
|
