Safety, Volume 8, Issue 3 (September 2022) – 20 articles

Rural populations experience injury-related mortality and morbidity rates 1.5 times greater than metropolitan residents. Motivated by a call for stronger epidemiological evidence around rural injuries to inform prevention, a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature published between January 2010 and March 2021 was undertaken to explore the epidemiology of rural injury and associated risk factors in Australia. A subsequent aim was to explore definitions of rurality used in injury prevention studies. There were 151 papers included in the review, utilizing 23 unique definitions to describe rurality. People living in rural areas were more likely to be injured, for injuries to be more severe, and for injuries to have greater resulting morbidity than people in metropolitan areas. The increase in severity reflects the mechanism of rural injury, with rural injury events more likely to involve a higher energy exchange. Risk-taking behavior and alcohol consumption were significant risk factors for rural injury, along with rural cluster demographics such as age, sex, high socio-economic disadvantage, and health-related comorbidities. As injury in rural populations is multifactorial and nonhomogeneous, a wide variety of evidence-based strategies are needed. This requires funding, political leadership for policy formation and development, and implementation of evidence-based prevention interventions. Full article

At 15:48 on 24 July 2021, a fire accident occurred in Changchun City, Jilin Province, China, resulting in 15 deaths and 25 injuries. After the accident happened, Jilin Province comprehensively organised an emergency rescue, saving more than 100 trapped people. Given the dangers posed by these events, it is recommended that we must strengthen our risk awareness. Combined with the general background and scene of the fire, in this study, we analysed the causes of the accident and described the on-site rescue actions. The direct cause of the accident was an arc fault, and the indirect cause was the dereliction of duty in the laying and installation of the circuit and the subsequent fire supervision. From our case analysis of electrical fires in public buildings, we found that electrical failure, human factors (illegal operation), ageing and short circuits of wires, poor contact of wires, and ignition of other combustibles by electrical appliances are the main factors causing electrical fire accidents in public buildings. To avoid serious fire accidents caused by arc faults, we proposed suggestions to reduce or prevent electric fire accidents caused by arc faults. Full article

Across the global construction industry, fatalities continue to occur from high-risk activities, where the risk controls have been defined; however, these were unreliable. In the mining industry, Critical Control Risk Management has provided positive results in reducing major accidents, which raises the question, could the Critical Control approach reduce the fatality rate in the construction industry? This study analyzed 10 years of serious and fatal incident investigation reports from four international construction companies to (i) assess the reliability of their Critical Controls (CCs) and (ii) assess the factors that affect the reliability of CCs. The results show the reliability of CCs, measured by implementation and effectiveness, averaged just 42%. Insight into human performance and organizational factors, including risk identification, decision-making and competency, together with supervision, job planning and communication, were identified as opportunities to improve the reliability of CCs. The study used bowtie diagrams with real event data to find the actual CC reliability. This appears to be the first published study that reports on the reliability of critical risk controls in construction. It demonstrates a feasible method for determining and communicating control effectiveness that can be used to deliver meaningful insights to industry practitioners on actual control performance and focus areas for improvement. In addition, actionable findings directly related to individual CCs can be derived that enable the participating organization to focus resources on improving specific verification processes. The results confirm the applicability of CCs for the Major Accident Event hazards analyzed and highlights that further reviews are required on the factors that need to be considered when implementing a CC program. This paper details our methodology and results, to assist others applying CCs as a risk management tool. Full article

This study introduces a new operational tool based on the AEIOU observational framework to support the design of adaptive human machine interfaces (HMIs) that aim to modify people’s behavior and support people’s choices, to improve safety using emotional regulation techniques, through the management of environmental characteristics (e.g., temperature and illumination), according to an approach based on the nudging concept within a design thinking process. The proposed approach focuses on research in the field of behavioral psychology that has studied the correlations between human emotions and driving behavior, pushing towards the elicitation of those emotions judged to be most suitable for safe driving. The main objective is to support the ideation of scenarios and/or design features for adaptive HMIs to implement a nudging strategy to increase driving safety. At the end, the results from a collaborative workshop, organized as a case study to collect concept ideas in the context of sports cars, will be shown and evaluated to highlight the validity of the proposed methodology, but also the limitations due to the requirement of prototypes to evaluate the actual effectiveness of the presented nudging strategies. Full article

All work sectors have been affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The perception of risk combined with the lack of safety and fear for their own safety have caused severe psychological discomfort in workers. Of all the work sectors, the most affected was certainly the healthcare sector. In hospitals, medical staff were at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19, providing care in close physical proximity to patients and had a direct risk of being exposed to the virus. The main objective of the study was to investigate the perception of a psychosocial safety climate and the effect on engagement and psychological stress in a sample of 606 healthcare workers (physicians 39.6%, nurses 41.3%, healthcare assistant 19.1%), belonging to six organisations and organised into 11 working groups. Furthermore, we wanted to investigate the mediating effect of workaholism at both individual and group level. The results partially confirmed our hypotheses and the mediating effect at the individual level of working compulsively. A psychosocial safety climate in healthcare workers led to a decrease in engagement through the mediation of working compulsively. The mediating effect of working compulsively might be due to a climate that did not guarantee or preserve the psychological health and safety of healthcare workers. In this research, the most important limit concerns the number of organisations and the number of groups. Full article

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are the most significant work-related health conditions that are experienced by agricultural workers. This cross-sectional study has investigated MSDs among agriculturalists in upper northeastern Thailand. We assessed the types of MSDs, their severity, and their frequency. There were 889 cultivating agriculturalists from four provinces who participated in this study. The majority of the participants reported experiencing mild levels of MSDs (60.48%). Predominantly, the farmers who were working on cassava, vegetable, and sugarcane plantations reported experiencing the most severe MSDs in the knees/calves (22.40%). The rice plantation workers reported the largest number of MSDs complaints. The workers on rubber plantations and in sugarcane fields were more likely to feel knee/calf pain (OR = 1.59, 95% CI = 1.05–2.39) and lower limb pain (OR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.35–2.89) than those who were working on rice and tobacco plantations. The individuals who were working on cassava, fruit, vegetable, and corn plantations were also more likely to report knee/calf pain (OR = 1.48, 95% CI = 1.01–2.17) and lower limb pain (OR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.37–2.84) than those who were working on rice and tobacco plantations. The MSDs that were found among those working on agricultural activities affected many parts of their bodies. The ergonomic risk needs to be assessed in order to inform plantation workers of the implications in order to improve their health and well-being and to reduce the risks of MSDs. Full article

The changing climate inflicts ecological, economic, social, and cultural consequences that are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Very often, this happens via interlinked critical infrastructures. Preparing these for natural hazards and carrying out risk assessments that consider their cascading effects on human livelihoods and well-being is a challenging task. Crisis management institutions can benefit from forecasts based on the idea of systemic risk. This study is based on stakeholder workshops, in which a systemic dynamic modelling method called the Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) was used to support contingency planning to identify the critical infrastructure-related factors, the vital functions in society, and to understand their interrelated nature. Together with the workshop participants (authorities and other service providers of critical infrastructures) we tested whether the CLD tool could help identify three types of indicators (threat factors, vulnerability, and resilience) that can help in assessing the risk level when a natural disaster hits. Our case study was a snowstorm, still a frequent phenomenon in the Nordic countries. This article describes and explains the possibilities and limitations of systemic dynamic modelling in contingency planning. Indicators describing the safety and security risks posed by natural hazards, as well as potential sources of data for these indicators, were identified. Identifying indicators that are relevant for anticipating interrelated and cascading effects offers valuable tools for risk assessment and security planning at operational and strategical levels. Full article

Aim: To explore gender influence on individual risk perception of multiple hazards and personal attitudes towards disaster preparedness across EU citizens. Method: An online survey was distributed to 2485 participants from Spain, France, Poland, Sweden and Italy. The survey was divided into two parts. The first part examined perceived likelihood (L), perceived personal impact (I) and perceived self-efficacy (E) towards disasters due to extreme weather conditions (flood, landslide and storm), fire, earthquake, hazardous materials accidents, and terrorist attacks. The overall risk rating for each specific hazard was measured through the following equation R = (L × I)/E and the resulting scores were brought into the range between 0 and 1. The second part explored people’s reactions to the Pros and Cons of preparedness to compute the overall attitudes of respondents towards preparation (expressed as a ratio between −1 and 1). Results: Although we found gender variations on concerns expressed as the likelihood of the occurrence, personal consequences and self-efficacy, the overall risks were judged significantly higher by females in all hazards (p < 0.01). We also found that, in general, most respondents (both males and females) were in favour of preparedness. More importantly, despite the gender differences in risk perception, there were no significant differences in the attitudes towards preparedness. We found weak correlations between risks perceived and attitudes towards preparedness (rho < 0.20). The intersectional analysis showed that young and adult females perceived higher risks than their gender counterparts at the same age. There were also gender differences in preparedness, i.e., females in higher age ranges are more motivated for preparedness than men in lower age ranges. We also found that risk perception for all hazards in females was significantly higher than in males at the same education level. We found no significant differences between sub-groups in the pros and cons of getting ready for disasters. However, females at a higher level of education have more positive attitudes towards preparedness. Conclusions: This study suggests that gender along with other intersecting factors (e.g., age and education) still shape differences in risk perception and attitudes towards disasters across the EU population. Overall, the presented results policy actions focus on promoting specific DRR policies and practices (bottom-up participatory and learning processes) through interventions oriented to specific target groups from a gender perspective. Full article

Vehicles falling off two-post above-ground (2PAG) lifts is a fairly frequent occurrence. As only limited knowledge is available about the determinants influencing the stability of lifting vehicles with a 2PAG lift, two experimental designs were carried out in order to have quantitative data. This paper addresses support pad slippage as a result of external forces being exerted on a vehicle. The experimental design is based on the consultation of the key players that identify the main issues related to the support pads. The controlled factors chosen in this experimental design were lift support pad type and position, smear on pads, arm locking and external force type. Based on the analysis of variance, factors that had a significant influence on the support pad slippage were (i) support pad type, (ii) external force type and (iii) the interaction between those two controlled factors. Arm locking and support pad position were not statistically significant. From a practical standpoint, initial placement of the support pad is, however, a major safety measure, as support pad slippage went up to 53% of the pad half-width. These results should challenge 2PAG lift manufacturers and vehicle manufacturers to come up with support pad and lifting point designs, respectively, that would reduce this inherent risk of the 2PAG lifts. Full article

Rear-end crashes are one of the leading types of crashes today. The anti-lock braking system (ABS) was designed to assist drivers during emergency braking situations by preventing wheel lock up, allowing drivers to retain control of the vehicle. Not all drivers have knowledge and experience with ABS, especially the haptic brake pedal feedback produced by ABS. There studies introduce a new method to train ABS using an emergency braking task on a simulator and an interactive exercise, Pedals Emergency Stop©. The interactive exercise was designed to prompt participants to press the brake pedal in a motion that is consistent with emergency braking and experience haptic ABS feedback. Participants that depressed the brake pedal quickly to the maximum travel and held that pedal position “passed” the trial. In Study 1, participants (N = 63) completed 15 trials, where it took on average three trials to “pass” for the first time, and 85% of the participants experienced their first “pass” within the first four trials. There were no differences observed between participants with previous knowledge and experience feeling ABS versus those who did not have prior knowledge and experience with ABS. The participants in this study thought that they had enough trials, that the exercise was a practical tool, and recommended the task for new drivers and refresher training, as well as for evaluating fitness to drive. Suggested improvements included a practice followed by three tests, all with four trials each; passing criteria of three out of four trials; and modifications to the feedback presented immediately after completing each trail. Study 2 was conducted (N = 38) to investigate the proposed “passing” criteria, where 95% passed on Test 1. The results revealed that the criteria to pass was reasonable. Future research should examine how the Pedals Emergency Stop© interactive exercise generalizes to on-road driving. Full article

Skid steers are versatile self-propelled machines that are regularly used in a variety of recreational applications and occupational industries. They can be hazardous for both operators and bystanders. The purpose of this paper is to describe patterns of skid steer injuries in the US from 2015 to 2020. Data were obtained from Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) accident reports and the severe injury database. Agriculture-related incidents were obtained from AgInjuryNews. The study identified 312 skid steer-related injuries (2015–2020) in OSHA, with an additional 68 agricultural injuries identified using AIN. Construction, administrative and waste management, and agriculture industries were the top three industries with the highest number of injuries. Bystander workers experienced a higher number of injuries than operators. Contact with the machine was the most prevalent and more fatal than the other injury events. Agricultural skid steer injuries involved a broad age range of victims, from very young children to adults. These findings emphasize the need for improved safety engineering and clear safety guidelines for skid steer operators and those who are around skid steers. With the increased prevalence of skid steers across industries, it is imperative to have cohesive and comprehensive safety regulations, guidelines, and policy enforcement. Full article

Although international law forbids nuclear attacks, only nine states have mutually assured destruction available to prevent direct attacks against themselves, while non-nuclear states have few substantive options to deter a nuclear attack. This study analyzes the economic impacts of a theoretical international agreement that eliminates patent rights for any nuclear aggressor (i.e., free global compulsory licensing of all intellectual property (IP) for a nuclear aggressor). The results found that all but one of the nuclear states would have a significant economic disincentive to start a nuclear attack if the proposal was put into force. Payback times ranged from 1.2 to 40 years, where the entire GDP of a nuclear aggressor would be needed to offset the loss for aggression, indicate such a mechanism as a whole would be an effective nuclear deterrent. This method would not be universally effective without ensuring all nuclear states are members of the international economy and IP processes. With the growth of open-source products and reduced value of patents, this mechanism does have a limited effectiveness time. Currently it appears to be a policy trajectory worthy of future work that can enhance safety from nuclear threat without causing harm to countries of goodwill. Full article

Commercial deployment of maritime autonomous surface ships (MASSs) is close to becoming a reality. Although MASSs are fully autonomous, the industry will still allow remote operations centre (ROC) operators to intervene if a MASS is facing an emergency the MASS cannot handle by itself. A human-centred design for the associated emergency response systems will require attention to the ROC operator workplace, but also, arguably, to the behaviour-shaping constraints on the engineers building these systems. There is thus a need for an engineer-centred design of engineering organisations, influenced by the current discourse on human factors. To contribute to the discourse, think-aloud protocol interviewing was conducted with well-informed maritime operators to elicit fundamental demands on cognition and collaboration by maritime autonomy emergency response systems. Based on the results, inferences were made regarding both design factors and methodological choices for future, early phase engineering of emergency response systems. Firstly, engineering firms have to improve their informal gathering and sharing of information through gatekeepers and/or organisational liaisons. To avoid a too cautious approach to accountability, this will have to include a closer integration of development and operations. Secondly, associated studies taking the typical approach of exposing relevant operators to new design concepts in scripted scenarios should include significant flexibility and less focus on realism. Full article

The leakage and diffusion of hazardous gases from steam methane reforming (SMR) equipment are investigated by Flame Acceleration Simulator (FLACS) software to optimize the layout of combustible gas detectors. A typical accident scenario, with the gases leaked from converter tubes with leak apertures of 5 mm, 25 mm, and 100 mm and medium pressure of 0.1 MPa, 1 MPa, and 10 MPa, is established. At the same time, the influence of the environment wind speeds from 0.2 m·s⁻¹ to 6 m·s⁻¹ on the diffusion process is also investigated. The research results show that the leakage source concentration and diffusion distance positively correlate with the leakage aperture. Suggestion on the distance between combustible gas detectors and possible leak point is within 5 m, 10 m, and 15 m in the scenario of the leak aperture of 5 mm (small-hole leak aperture), 25 mm (middle-hole leak aperture), and 100 mm (big-hole leak aperture). The most dangerous scenario is at the static ambient wind speed, and the diffusion process strengthens with the raising of wind speed. The turning point scenario occurs at a wind speed of 1 m·s⁻¹, where the flammable area is minimal. The medium pressure relates to the jet speed of the combustible gases. The wind speed should be comprehensively determined when considering the layout of the combustible gas detectors affected by this factor. The orthogonal experimental design shows that the most significant influence factor on the diffusion process of the combustible gas is the leak aperture, followed by the medium pressure and, finally, by the ambient wind speed. Recommendations are listed for the optimization of the layout of gas detectors in related enterprises. Full article

Impaired operator line of sight has been implicated in several pedestrian–equipment accidents and fatalities in the mining industry. Existing training methods for conveying visibility information lack worker engagement and may be insufficient to capture the dynamic, three-dimensional nature of blind spots around industrial equipment. The present study utilized a custom virtual reality experience intended to shift the way in which visibility information is presented. Visibility knowledge, confidence levels and safe pedestrian behaviors around the load-haul-dump vehicle were examined among participants in control and experimental (virtual reality and conventional training) groups (n = 72). Results demonstrate that the virtual reality intervention was not effective for increasing visibility knowledge and safe pedestrian behaviors relative to controls, although the performances of the virtual reality and conventional training groups were comparable. A discrepancy was identified in the perceived versus actual visibility knowledge and safe pedestrian behaviors at the rear of the load-haul-dump vehicle among the virtual reality training group. The findings suggest poor knowledge transfer between the three-dimensional virtual reality experience and the two-dimensional visibility plot used. The work also speaks to the importance of emphasizing rear-facing visibility deficits around machinery within industry safety training materials. Full article

Background: Occupational accidents suffered by male teachers can be a source of injury to different parts of the body and can lead to absence from work. However, there are only a limited number of studies focused on this topic; the current research evaluates the influence of the main variables associated with occupational injuries among male teachers. Methods: Logistic regression based on the calculation of the odds ratio (OR) was used on a sample of 42,878 occupational accidents suffered by male teachers in the period 2003–2018. Results: Male teachers under 45 years of age with less than one year of experience obtained better results for most types of injury. In contrast, those older than 45 years and with more experience obtained worse results. Conclusions: No single variable was detected with the same protective or risk effect through the different parts of the body injured. Teachers’ safety training adapted to risk profiles and injuries could improve accident rates in the education sector. Full article

Roundabouts are well-known for their ability to improve upon traffic safety, especially for motorized traffic. An in-depth analysis on this topic is known from previous work. It was found that different types of roundabouts have different levels of safety. The work at hand is a replication study for a previous study in this regard. It uses a mix of traditional and a Machine Learning (ML)-based approach, expands on the previous results and replicates some of the previous findings. This was possible especially by using a factor of 10 more roundabouts in the analysis, with considerably less manual intervention. Furthermore, this study could also draw some additional conclusions regarding the safety of bicyclists, which were not included in the original study. Finally, by using cross-validation techniques, a kind of minimal model could be established that needs fewer factors and achieves better prediction quality than straightforward glm models. Full article

Although the school bus is considered a safe form of transportation, school bus crashes are a major safety concern. School bus crashes are a result of driver error of either the at-fault school bus or another at-fault vehicle (where the school bus is not at fault). To examine the risk factors associated with school bus related crashes and crash outcomes, this study segments and develops two binary logit models for each school bus crash type. A total of 1702 school bus related crashes recorded between 2009 and 2016 were used to estimate the model. According to the model results, sideswipe collisions were less likely to result in injury outcomes for at-fault school buses than rear-end and side-impact collisions. Speeding, driving impaired or under the influence, and negotiating a curve all have significant positive associations with injury outcomes in not-at-fault school bus crashes. This study’s practical implications include enforcing the school bus safe driving guidelines, training programs for school bus drivers that include elements of nonroutine trips, training for crossing guards, and awareness programs for drivers of other vehicles to instill safe driving practices around school buses. Full article

Despite their undisputed potential, the uptake of collaborative robots remains below expectations. Collaborative robots (cobots) are used differently from conventional industrial robots. The current safety focus of collaborative workspaces is predominantly on the technological design; additional factors also need to be considered to cope with the emerging risks associated with complex systems. Cobot technologies are characterized by an inherent tradeoff between safety and efficiency. They introduce new, emergent risks to organizations and can create psychosocial impacts on workers. This leads to a confusing body of information and an apparent contradiction about cobot safety. Combined with a lack of safety knowledge, this impedes the introduction of cobots. A multi-step methodology was used, including a literature review and conceptual modeling. This article argues for the need for a system-wide safety awareness readiness assessment in the consideration phase of cobot implementation to alleviate the knowledge deficit and confusion. This work will benefit both researchers and practitioners. In addition, it defends the appropriateness of a maturity grid model for a readiness assessment tool. The building blocks for an easy-to-use and practically applicable tool are proposed, as well as an agenda for the next steps. Full article

With Level 3 and 4 automated driving activated, users will be allowed to engage in a wide range of non-driving related activities (NDRAs). Although Level 2 automation can appear very similar to L3 and L4, drivers are required to always monitor the system. However, past research has found drivers neglect this obligation at least partly and instead engage in NDRAs. Since this behavior can have negative impacts on traffic safety, the goal of this work was to develop a human–machine interface (HMI) concept to motivate users to continue their supervision task. This work’s concept used message framing in connection with affective elements. Every three minutes, messages were displayed on the head-up display. To evaluate the affective message concept’s (AMC) effectiveness, we conducted a between-subject driving simulator study (baseline vs. advanced HMI) with 32 participants and 45 min of driving time with both L2 and L4 phases and a silent system malfunction. Results show the road attention ratio decreases and the NDRA engagement ratio increases over time only for baseline participants. Participants supported by the AMC did not show a change over time in monitoring behavior and NDRA engagement. However, no effect on the drivers’ reaction to the system failure became apparent. No effects on subjective workload and user experience were found. Additional research is needed to further investigate the safety implications and long-term effectiveness of the concept, as well as a driver-state-dependent design. Full article