Identifying Root Causes of Construction Accidents

TLDR

Construction accident investigations identify accident types and how they occurred but fail to pinpoint root causes, necessitating tailored causation models for the industry. This paper introduces the accident root causes tracing model (ARCTM) designed for construction settings. ARCTM defines three root causes: failure to detect unsafe conditions before or during work, proceeding after identifying such conditions, and choosing to act unsafely regardless of conditions. In this paper, the authors present the ARCTM model.

Abstract

Construction accident investigation techniques and reporting systems identify what type of accidents occur and how they occurred. Unfortunately, they do not properly address why the accident occurred by identifying possible root causes, which is only possible by complementing these techniques with theories of accident causation and theories of human error. The uniqueness of the construction industry dictates the need to tailor many of the contemporary accident causation models and human error theories. This paper presents an accident root causes tracing model (ARCTM) tailored to the needs of the construction industry. ARCTM proposes that accidents occur due to three root causes: (1) Failing to identify an unsafe condition that existed before an activity was started or that developed after an activity was started; (2) deciding to proceed with a work activity after the worker identifies an existing unsafe condition; and (3) deciding to act unsafe regardless of initial conditions of the work environment. In ...